⚠️ATROCIOUS story of Trump’s OSHA dereliction: So Roger Liddell, 64, asked for an N95- his 🏥work brought him into the same room as #COVID-positive ICU patients. But the hospital denied his request. He contracted the virus. “Pray for me God,” he wrote on FB. He died April 10.🧵
2) “The hospital’s problems with personal protective equipment (PPE) were well documented. In mid-March, the state office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) received five complaints, which described employees receiving “zero PPE.” “ 
3) “The OSHA cases were closed April 21, after the hospital presented paperwork saying problems had been resolved. There was no onsite inspection, and the hospital’s written response was deemed sufficient to close the complaints, a local OSHA spokesperson confirmed.”
4) “The grief and fear gripping workers and their families reflect a far larger pattern. Since March, more than 4,100 COVID complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job.”
5) “A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.”
6) “The complaint logs, which have been made public, show thousands of desperate pleas from workers seeking better protective gear for their hospitals, medical offices and nursing homes.”
7) “The quick closure of complaints underscores the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to oversight, said former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz. Instead of cracking down, the agency simply sent letters reminding employers to follow CDC guidelines”
8) “This is a travesty,” she said.
A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.”
A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.”
9) “complaint regarding Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey, illustrates the life-or-death stakes for workers on the front lines. The complaint says workers were “not allowed to wear” masks in the hallway outside COVID-19 patients’ rooms even though studies...”
10) “have since shown the highly contagious virus can spread throughout a health care facility. It also said workers “were not allowed adequate access” to PPE.”
11) “Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”
12) “In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have cough & headache… we were exposed to 6 patients who now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”
“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”
“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”
13) “By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”
14) ➡️ @OSHA_DOL records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open & did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list
15) “Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices. Doctors, nurses, home health aides and hospital cleaners have lost their lives during the coronavirus outbreak. Meet these essential caretakers.
Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats...”
Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats...”
16) “of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.”
17) “At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”
18) “Of 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.”
19) “More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One said home health nurses in Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear.” !!! @AOC @JamaalBowmanNY
20) “At MA nursing home that housed COVID, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves. A complaint about Ohio nursing home said workers were not req to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint closed in 3 days by OSHA”
21) “According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed...”
22) “Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator.
“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.
He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.
“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.
He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.
23) ➡️ There are numerous more stories than the tales above, as well as official responses. Encourage people to share this issue with your elected leaders to make @OSHA_DOL more accountable.
➡️ We also need to support whistleblowers.
CC: @NAChristakis
khn.org/news/osha-inve…
➡️ We also need to support whistleblowers.
CC: @NAChristakis
khn.org/news/osha-inve…
