NYC hospitals are allowing coronavirus-positive nurses to work: sources

Sarah Dowd, a nurse at Harlem Hospital, said the “majority” of her coworkers have had symptoms of coronavirus during the last several weeks.

Nurses who test positive for coronavirus are being allowed to work while sick in at least three New York City hospitals, according to several health care sources.

One nurse at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx told the Daily News she had been experiencing mild symptoms of the disease for seven days before receiving a positive test result.

When she told the hospital’s occupational health services unit the news, she said they told her she could continue working despite findings that show the possibility of transmitting the virus lasts for at least two weeks.

“They wouldn’t grant me another seven days — one, to protect my patients, and two, to protect my co-workers,” said the nurse, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “They’re telling me I have to use my own sick time for something that I got when I was at work.”

Instead of taking the full seven days off, the nurse took only two.

“It’s a really tough spot they put you in,” she said. “You want to make sure you’re helping, but you don’t want to get anyone else sick.”

It isn’t just coworkers who are a concern, said Anthony Feliciano, director of the Commission on the Public’s Health System, a health care watchdog group.

“In the end, you’re hurting the nurse, but you’re also hurting the patient,” he said.

Feliciano said the seven days that hospitals give workers to recover from COVID-19 are based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mischa Gaus, a rep for the NYS Nurses Association at Montefiore, said allowing nurses to work sick with COVID-19 is a departure from policy that had been in place as recently as two weeks ago.

Nurses protesting outside Montefiore hospital in New York on April 6, 2020. (Brittany Kreigstein / New York Daily News)

“It used to be, you go home, you get better. Now, they’re saying you have to use your own sick time,” he said. “If I have to pay my mortgage, if I have to pay my rent, I have to come back to work.”

Some nurses are so sick, they’re choosing to stay home, even if it means not getting paid. Montefiore nurse Johnaira Dilone was working a shift at the hospital on March 25 when she started to experience symptoms. She hasn’t been back on the job since.

“They put me to go back to work ... this past Monday. My colleague informed them I’m still sick,” she said.

The hospital granted her seven days sick time, and Dilone only has four days of her own accrued sick time to make up the rest of the time she’s taken off.

“I don’t know what my check will be this Thursday,” she said.

Montefiore did not respond to requests for comment.

Nurses at Harlem Hospital and at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx also say they’re reporting for duty with coronavirus symptoms or positive test results.

Montefiore nurse Johnaira Dilone, pictured, was working a shift at the hospital on March 25 when she started to experience symptoms of coronavirus.

Sarah Dowd, a nurse at Harlem Hospital, said the “majority” of her coworkers have had symptoms of coronavirus during the last several weeks.

“I have a coworker on my floor who was coughing — coughing uncontrollably — and they were like, You’re OK to work,” she said of the hospital’s higher-ups. “The response from management was completely unacceptable.”

Dowd said the hospital has given people with symptoms seven days off, but some still have symptoms when they return.

“It’s a horrible idea,” she said. “Fourteen days is the minimum recommended time based on the evidence we have.”

Dowd said she started having mild symptoms — a sore throat — shortly after treating a patient with coronavirus. She’s planning to get a test this week.

Nurses who are sick are also expected to work at Lincoln Hospital.

Lillian Udell, left, an ER nurse at Lincoln Hospital, is pictured with a colleague during the coronavirus outbreak.

A Lincoln Hospital doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he took a full 14 days to recover from COVID-19, but the hospital “wouldn’t have said do not come in” while he was sick.

“I know that for a fact,” he said. “It perpetuates the entire pandemic.”

One Lincoln nurse, Lillian Udell, said after finishing her seven days of self-isolation she was called by a hospital worker who told her she was expected back to work.

“I felt pressure to come back before my symptoms had resolved, on top of guilt about what my coworkers must be going through,” she said. “If a health care worker tests positive and still believes she is sick, I don’t think that worker should feel guilted into returning to work. It’s unsafe for patients and coworkers."

Harlem Hospital and Lincoln Hospital are both part of the city-run Health + Hospitals network, which announced last week that it would offer testing to all of its health care workers.

“We would not expect health care workers who are actively sick to work,” said Health + Hospitals spokeswoman Stephanie Guzman. “Following health department guidance, we ask health care workers on the front lines of patient care to regularly monitor their temperature."

Workers who become ill "must stay home and undergo a period of required isolation for seven days, with the last 72 hours being fever-free without medications and other symptoms improving,” Guzman said.

The New York State Nurses Association, a union which represents nurses throughout city hospitals, disagrees with those guidelines.

“The internationally-recognized medical standard for quarantine against COVID-19 is 14 days which, once carried out in China, brought dramatic results,” said Pat Kane, NYSNA’s executive director. “By imposing a seven-day standard, or 72 hours without fever, whichever is less, hospitals are cutting the requirement in half, or even less. We implore the hospitals to stop this perilous practice and do their part in fighting the virus.”