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Nursing Home Workers Union Pleads For More Protections
An employee wearing a full body protection suit works inside a senior care home in Germany on March 31, 2020. (Ronny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images)
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As state infection control specialists try to contain a coronavirus outbreak at a nursing home in San Bernardino County, employees at nursing home facilities say they don’t have the protective equipment they need to keep themselves and residents safe.
“Unfortunately, Yucaipa... It is the tip of the iceberg,” said April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015, which represents thousands of nursing home workers in California.
Verrett said she's pleading with the federal government to get more masks, gowns and gloves to workers at nursing homes. Health care workers in the U.S. have increasingly demanded answers about why their counterparts in other nations are routinely in far more protective gear than they're wearing here (see the image above from Germany as one example.)
Fifty-one residents and six staff members at the Cedar Mountain nursing home in Yucaipa have tested positive for COVID-19. Two infected residents have died.
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