Understaffed hospitals in California are suspending nurses just when they need them most - and volunteers aren't being deployed

• At least two hospitals in California have suspended nurses for calling out inadequate access to protective gear such as airborne-resistant masks.
• Nurses at these hospitals - Providence Saint John's in Santa Monica and West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles - said there aren't enough caregivers to treat coronavirus patients.
• Nearly 90,000 volunteer nurses and healthcare workers have signed up to help short-staffed California hospitals, but the state hasn't deployed any of them yet.
• If you are a nurse in a short-staffed hospital, email aakhtar@businessinsider.com.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jacob Childs used to work alongside his brother as registered nurses in the designated coronavirus floor at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California - until his brother and 10 other nurses were suspended after they complained they didn't have access to airborne-resistant masks.

As a result, Childs said he and other nurses on his floor have been short-staffed and that he now has to care for five coronavirus patients at a time, two more than before the suspensions. He called his floor "wildly understaffed" due to the 11 suspended nurses and another 21 workers taking personal time off.

"It's really stressful and scary," Childs told Business Insider. "You have to be slow taking [protective gear] on or off because you have to be careful about contaminating yourself or your coworkers, and it's very difficult to manage the time and pressure for all of us."

Business Insider previously reported on a similar nurse suspension, at HCA Healthcare's West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles, as well as hospitals having staffing issues amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 600,o00 Americans and pushed US hospitals and healthcare workers to their limits. Hospital nurses worry they will contract the virus due to inadequate access to protective gear (like masks and gowns) stemming from a nationwide shortage.

And yet, despite hospitals suspending nurses and dealing with short-staffing as a result, California hasn't deployed any of the volunteers from the program announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom in late March. When he announced the "California Health Corps," Newsom asked healthcare volunteers to come to the state to help hospitals that were overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. But two weeks later, as of April 13, the program hadn't placed any of its 89,437 registrants in hospitals, according to a spokesperson for the California Health and Human Services Agency.

While it's unclear whether Saint Johns and West Hills, neither of which have responded to requests for comment, have sought volunteer nurses, the spokesperson told Business Insider it was onboarding about 350 to be on standby to support Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento. That will be an alternate care site to support the region's health care delivery system should hospitals reach capacity, the spokesperson added.

"We were pushing back and fighting for our safety, and stirring things up with the community and the media, and it felt like [the hospital] was retaliating by increasing our patient load," said Chelsea Halmy, a nurse suspended by Saint Johns and a member of the National Nurses United union. "It's just unsafe they're increasing the [nurse-to-patient] ratio when we have the nurses to work."

California nurses say hospitals are short-staffed - but the hospital has not provided additional support.

HCA Healthcare - the country's largest healthcare system - suspended registered nurse Jhonna Porter earlier this month for posting about her floor's coronavirus protocol in a private Facebook group. HCA Healthcare said she had violated its social media policy as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, which mandates that healthcare workers keep patient information private.

The hospital has since reinstated Porter and another suspended nurse. But Porter told Business Insider that the hospital has since furloughed contract nurses working on a per diem basis. As a result, Porter said, nurses have been working without breaks while each of them cares for about three COVID-19 patients every day.

Porter said she asked her boss for permission to work extra hours and was denied. The floor has not received help from volunteer staff or private staffing agencies, she added. "Our floor is short-staffed and everyone is missing their breaks," Porter said.

The California Health Corps was launched to support hospitals overwhelmed with the coronavirus with the goal of having volunteer medical staff focusing on low-acuity patients, or those with mild symptoms. Hospital staff was meant to focus on severe cases, a spokesperson said.

Halmy said the hospital suspended her after she asked for airborne particle-resistant N95 masks. St. John's had previously told nurses that it couldn't provide them with this gear, after the CDC had stopped mandating their use. Though Halmy's suspension is paid, the nurse said she would rather be spending her time treating critical COVID-19 patients.

"I'm a nurse, all we want to do is go to work, keep our heads down, and take care of our patients," she said. "I don't want to quit my job or anything, I want to be there and work."