No, it seems. I don’t know if this applies to nurses in general, but it seems that at least the nurses and nursing students posting on allnurses.com are not about to sacrifice themselves for the “public good.” Whatever that means.

Backtrack…someone posted the classic hypothetic scenario. The bird flu finally manages to mutate, causes the long awaited pandemic, with a fatality rate of 60% and with 80% of the cases in the 0-40 year old age range.

You, as the devoted nurse, must face the following situation: Hospitals are overwhelmed and staffing is at about 50%. The Government orders all nurses to work (and I’m assuming, although the poster didn’t say, all doctors as well). There is not enough Personal Protection Equipment (N95 masks, gloves, goggles, tamiflu, vax, etc).

Home quarantines become common, your family is quarantined and supplies are running low (stuff like food). However, Big Brother aka the feds, promise that you will be “taken care of” if you are a good nurse and report to work.

So would you go to work?

The scenario does sound like the real situation, should a pandemic ever occur. Since healthcare workers are readily treated like throwaway items, hospitals and government have not invested in making sure that there are sufficient amounts of Personal Protection Equipment. So if you are a good nurse and enter the hospital, you better be ready to sacrifice yourself.

I didn’t read all of the comments, but the majority would not go in. Or would only go in if they were able to attend to their family first. But most were highly skeptical of a government promise to be taken care of….I mean, without protection, does that mean the government will pay your funeral expenses? Put lilies on your grave?

One person made an excellent point, and one that any of our pandemic planners should take to heart:

“Pandemic or not, my family comes first. Sorry, but its not my problem that they have not invested enough money for PPE, staff and research; nor, should I risk my life trying to accomodate their mistakes.”

The poster also pointed out that we are not likely to see politicians or any other high level officials rolling up their sleeves and exposing themselves to patients stricken with a deadly disease, without being able to protect themselves.

You can read the full thread on allnurses.com

It is a conundrum because someone has to care for the sick. And I’m sure that nurses and other healthcare workers wouldn’t mind coming in, if they truly were going to be “taken care of.” Paid extra, have food and other supplies delivered to their families, and given the top of the line protection against contracting the virus from patients. But gone are the days when the nurse is supposed to lay herself on the altar and try to be a martyr.

I had an interesting conversation a few years ago about coming into work during a disaster. A nurse, who I will call Marcy, was talking about her friend who worked during one of the hurricanes that hit the Atlantic coast during the 1980s. I think it may have been Hugo. She said that her friend went into work, rather than evacuate. The hospital she was working at was damaged, as was her home. Because she was at work and couldn’t leave, she had no time to even attempt to secure her home.

I said that the nurse was crazy. Marcy got a stiff lip and said that her friend was a “devoted nurse” and should be commended. I said that the hospital, being in harm’s way, should have evacuated their patients. There was quite a bit of warning for the hurricane, and hospitals do have the option of evacuating patients. They should not expect staff to risk their lives coming into work, or to willingly stay over and do shift after shift. What they did was put everyone at risk.

It is an interesting conundrum, nevertheless.