by P.D. Lesko

Despite threats from employers of disciplinary action and even firing, nurses and doctors say that health care workers fighting the coronavirus outbreak across the country are getting sick and dying. And despite the fact that nurses and doctors are essential to fighting the epidemic, Michigan officials said they were not tracking health care cases or data associated with the illness and/or deaths of the state’s health care workers.

Bridge reported on April 10 that, “seven health care workers in southeast Michigan have now died from complications of the coronavirus, including Dr. Chris Firlit, a 37-year-old husband and father of three, a doctor at Ascension Macomb Hospital who graduated from Wayne State University.”

Thus far in April, 12 states have reported health care worker infections: Alabama (393), Arkansas (158), California (1,651), Kentucky (129), Idaho (143), Maine (97), New Hampshire (241), Ohio (1,137), Oklahoma (229), Oregon (153), Pennsylvania (850), Rhode Island (257), and West Virginia (76). Additionally, Washington, DC (29) and Hawaii (15) reported infections at a specific hospital, not state or territory-wide.

As of the beginning of April, according to information released by individual hospital systems, nearly 3,000 people employed by health care systems in southeast Michigan have either tested positive for the virus or developed symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. At least seven have died. Beaumont Hospital announced recently that 1,500 employees had tested positive for the virus, one third of whom are nurses. Likewise, in March, officials from Henry Ford Hospital announced that over 700 employees had tested positive, and by April 15 had upped that number to 872.

A recent BuzzFeed News investigation found that at least 5,400 health care workers in the U.S. have been infected based on available data collected at the state level — but as the Detroit figures show, the true number is likely “much higher due to inconsistent tracking throughout the country. Michigan health officials, for example, have said they are not specifically collecting this information.”

On April 7, the University of Michigan Hospital announced 110 employees had tested positive. Six days later, at Michigan Medicine 278 employees had tested positive for COVID-19. Michigan Medicine employs 30,000 workers and not all of them have been tested yet.

At veterans affairs medical centers in the Detroit area, 40 employees have tested positive for the coronavirus. Of them, 15 work for the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. One employee at that location has died, a VA spokesperson said.

On April 15, University of Michigan nurses protested a lack of PPE and a “broken” health care system. The nurses—spread six feet apart from one and other—held up signs that said “PPE over profit” and “Hail to the Front Lines,” outside the University of Michigan’s Rogel Cancer Center.

Doctors, nurses, and others in health care have sounded the alarm for weeks that a lack of access to testing and personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks and gloves, has left them at a high risk of getting exposed as they fight the virus.

This lack of data collection by State of Michigan officials, leaves health care professionals as well as the public in the dark and forced to rely on transparency and data collected and released by individual Michigan hospitals. Thus far, only a handful of hospitals in the state have released information about the number of their employees, including doctors and nurses, infected with the COVID-19 virus. Officials at The Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, which employs more than 12,000 people in southeast Michigan, refused to provide data about how many of its staffers have been tested or gotten sick as a result of the virus.

“We respect the privacy of our colleagues, and we do not share that information publicly,” a St. Joe’s hospital official responded by email. The official also confirmed that, “no employees had died.”

Jamie Brown is the president of the Michigan Nurses Association. Brown said, “This pandemic brings to light the deep problems rooted in the way our health care system functions.” Brown also said that the union has been urging lawmakers in Michigan for years to pass a bill to prevent understaffing in hospitals. “This current crisis shows exactly why that is so important.”

Brown said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer “is doing everything she can” to get medical staff more personal protective equipment, “but a national shortage needs a national solution.”

According to the reporting done by Bridge, six other employees of southeast Michigan health-care providers have also died. They are:

• Divina Accad, a 72-year-old resident of Taylor who worked as a nurse at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit. She died March 30.
• An unidentified employee of the VA Ann Arbor Medical Center. The medical center confirmed the death in a statement to the Free Press but did not identify the employee or the date of death. 
• An unidentified employee of the Wellspring Lutheran Services’ New Directions residential care facility. Located in Farmington Hills, it serves teens with behavioral, emotional or cognitive issues. The United Auto Workers’ Local 600 confirmed the April 6 death. Wellspring Lutheran Services declined comment.
• Patrick Cain, 52, an intensive care nurse at McLaren Flint. 
• James House of Warren, a 40-year-old nurse at a nursing home in Detroit run by Omni Continuing Care. Although he had not been tested for COVID-19, his sister told the Free Press that he had classic symptoms of the disease — cough, low-grade fever, shortness of breath.
• Lisa Ewald, a long-time employee of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, died of COVID-19 in March. She was 53 and lived in Dearborn. The hospital confirmed her death earlier this month.