Clinic worker contracts COVID as his union pressures MultiCare for upgraded masks
This week, Tacoma-based MultiCare announced a wider distribution of N95 masks to workers in its hospitals, which was good news for many who had sought broader access.
But a group of workers within the health system that has made a lack of N95 supplies a centerpiece of its labor dispute says it’s been left out of the expansion.
On Thanksgiving, a member of that group learned he’d tested positive for COVID-19.
Indigo Urgent Care clinic workers represented by the Union of American Physicians and Dentists held a two-day strike against MultiCare on Monday and Tuesday amid stalled contract negotiations.
A centerpiece of the strike was the union’s message that its workers, who test a steady stream of patients for COVID-19, perform the work without N95 masks provided.
Instead, they are provided surgical masks and shields that the workers say offer inadequate protection.
The union says that MultiCare does not allow clinic staff to bring in their own N95s. The health system contends that the workers are given appropriate PPE for their line of work.
The strike coincided with a change in PPE policy for MultiCare hospital workers, the timing of which the union sees as deliberate.
“We view MultiCare’s decision to outfit all providers and staff seeing suspect-COVID and COVID-positive patients as blatantly retaliatory. The union is considering next steps in the face of this unlawful action,” said Dr. Stuart Bussey, union president and former urgent care physician, in a statement issued Wednesday evening.
MultiCare, in a statement sent to The News Tribune late Wednesday in response to questions about the new policy, said: “MultiCare’s supply chain department has worked diligently and creatively to find PPE, including N95s, from manufacturers all over the world. We currently have enough N95s to support teams taking care of COVID-19 positive patients and those receiving aerosolizing procedures. However, the supply issue persists.”
It said it had “identified additional sources of PPE for our teams and will soon be able to expand access to N95s to our inpatient and other care teams who are taking care of patients who have known or suspected cases of COVID-19 who are receiving aerosolizing procedures.”
The new policy
MultiCare, in an internal statement to hospital employees, said, “Recognizing increased community prevalence of COVID-19. We have reached the decision to move to an all N95 strategy for staff caring for COVID-positive and COVID-rule out patients in the inpatient hospital setting.”
Screenshots of the statement were shared with The News Tribune by UAPD and a worker.
The statement noted that the health system was “recommending continuously wearing an N95 and full face shield while working with COVID-positive and rule-out patients in the inpatient hospital setting.”
Previously, the health system reserved its supply of N95s in general for those involved in the more intense COVID treatments — known as “aerosolizing procedures” — such as intubation.
The new policy is for hospitals throughout the system, both in Puget Sound and Spokane County in Eastern Washington.
“We have already begun fit-testing additional employees so they have the proper training to effectively use N95s in their daily work when our supply increases,” MultiCare said in its statement to The News Tribune on Wednesday. “This will take weeks, not days, to accomplish but we are confident this will align with our increased inventory, expected in mid-December.”
Illness and quarantine among workers
The timing of the announcement came the same week that an Indigo physician assistant, who’d taken part in the UAPD picket, tested positive.
Matthew Carey told The News Tribune in a phone interview Thursday that he was notified by a medical provider of his positive test result Thanksgiving morning.
Carey was interviewed earlier in the week by The News Tribune during the picket. At that time, he noted that while he considered himself “fortunate to work with some really excellent providers,” he’d seen a fair share of workload problems at the clinics, including lack of breaks, understaffing and no control of patient volume.
On Thursday, he said: “After the first day of picketing, I got home and I was like ... what’s going on? And I just started feeling a little bit under the weather. So I stayed back from the second day of picketing and went to get tested.”
In his work, he said, he conducts the exams, but not the swabbing, for testing.
“I go in there and do an exam because sore throats are common complaints. I get to take a look at their throat as well, just to make sure it’s not strep. I have had some people come down with both strep and COVID at the same time,” Carey said.
“There were two days I was working just prior to the strike. I was working Saturday and Sunday. It’s likely I picked it up on one of those days.”
MultiCare, in response to Carey’s diagnosis, told The News Tribune in a statement: “COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in our community, and it’s often hard to know where a person who tests positive is exposed to the virus. We encourage all of our employees to contact our employee health department if they think they were exposed at work so we can conduct a safety investigation and coordinate testing.”
Carey said he did not believe his case was the result of catching it in the community.
“Right now I do nothing except go straight to work and come home. I take a shower, to try and decontaminate before interacting with my family. I don’t do any of the shopping,” he said. “I don’t go out for anything. I’m strictly a homebody during this period of time, especially with the uptick. So I haven’t seen friends. I haven’t seen anybody.”
He estimated he sees 15 to 30 COVID-suspected cases each day.
UAPD, in a statement issued Wednesday, noted: “Several providers on strike could not picket due to pending COVID-19 test results, underscoring the severity of danger of their work conditions.”
Joe Crane, regional administrator for UAPD, told The News Tribune via email Thursday that the union did not have an exact number of how many Indigo workers had fallen ill.
Among UAPD members, “I know of at least 10 at this point who have gone on quarantine,” he wrote, but added that the number overall was likely much higher.
Mark Mariani, chief medical officer with MultiCare, told The News Tribune in an interview earlier this week that “We’ve had employees that become sick within Indigo, no doubt. But again, the positivity rate within the community is so high. And actually, you know, our biggest issue has actually been constantly honing in with our teams to do the basics.”
He said workers needed to be mindful of not removing masks in downtime at work around others and to follow physical distancing practices.
“Taking breaks, and not eating around other coworkers, that is a big issue,” Mariani said. “And when we really focus on that, that’s where our teams are really remaining safe. It’s those little issues that are our core focus.”
“We are constantly reiterating to our teams how important it is to simply stay masked.”
UAPD would prefer those masks be N95s, as stated in their Wednesday news release discussing mask distribution.
“Following the first day of successfully picketing, MultiCare began issuing N95 masks ... but not to any providers who work at Indigo Urgent Care clinics. UAPD finds this selective distribution discriminatory.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2020 at 11:05 AM.
