Detroit on the Front Line in Battle to End COVID-19 Pandemic

https://fighting-words.net/2020/04/10/detroit-on-the-front-line-in-battle-to-end-covid-19-pandemic/

By Abayomi Azikiwe

More than 2,000 people working in the healthcare industry have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 in the Detroit metropolitan area sending further tremors through the already heavily-shaken region which has been identified as a major “hotspot” in the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Beaumont Hospital system said on April 6 that 1,500 of their employees have symptoms consistent with COVID-19. These numbers include 500 nurses.

At Sinai-Grace Hospital, a group of nurses staged a sit-in demanding that additional staff be hired and assigned to their shift. The nurses emphasized that there was not enough personnel to address the needs of the patients.

These nurses were then told to go home. Another nurse two weeks earlier was terminated by Sinai-Grace for raising the same concerns in a social media post.

Henry Ford Hospital announced on April 8 that over 700 of its 31,000 employees had tested positive for COVID-19. 718 patients battling the virus are being treated in the five Henry Ford Hospital campuses across Detroit and its suburbs.

The situation has created much anxiety and anger among workers in the hospital systems….