CLEVELAND — Employees at a Cleveland nursing home are sounding the alarm about how the nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment is affecting them.
Workers said they are functioning with the bare minimum when it comes to protective gear and caring for elderly patients at Cityview Healthcare and Rehabilitation.
“I didn’t sign up for this, but I’m in it,” Gwendolyn Hinton said, “And we’re doing what we can do.”
Carol Ford has worked in the healthcare industry for 41 years and said she’s never experienced anything like the current global health crisis.
“This disease is the mass killer of them all,” Ford said, “I’ve worked through MRSA, SARS, all of it, but this virus, you have to be protected."
Cityview employees banded together Thursday afternoon and demanded the federal government ship out more personal protective equipment to healthcare workers on the front lines of COVID-19.
“We create these little masks and stuff,” Ford said, “This is not the real mask that’s gonna protect you from the disease.”
Governor Mike DeWine addressed the national shortage of PPE during his daily briefing Thursday.
“It’s our obligation to protect our protectors, people who are protecting us,” DeWine said. “We’re gonna try to buy it, but if we can’t buy it, we’re figuring out how to rework our manufacturing supply chain in Ohio to make it.”
Hinton said caring for at-risk patients is keeping her from seeing her own family because she fears she may eventually contract COVID-19.
“I can’t go by my grand babies. No telling what I’m carrying home,” Hinton said. “I don’t have the correct equipment.”
Healthcare workers nationwide say they’re begging for protection while at war with COVID-19 and there’s seemingly no end in sight.
