Nurses are the Coronavirus heroes.

The LA Times paid tribute to those who sacrifice life and limb as they compassionately care for the GOVID-19 victims.  These are our health-care heroes.  This is news that matters

The coronavirus is taking a serious toll on the doctors and nurses risking their lives while treating infected patients.

Moving in and out of negative-pressure rooms, putting on protective equipment and taking it off again, nurses are caring for patients who are severely ill and sometimes dying. They spend the greatest amount of time with the patients.

These nurses draw blood, obtain samples, provide oxygen, and devotedly tend to their patients’ needs. When a patient is placed in intensive care, it’s the nurses who do the mundane and the heroic to help the patient recover or die with a little more comfort.

Nurses are the underappreciated heroes of this crisis. Though they are usually the coolest of head in the room, they are now feeling the tremendous pressure of their situation.

Here we take a closer look at some of the brave men and women who are on the front lines battling this virus.

SOURCE:  LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-17/nurses-are-the-coronavirus-heroes

The WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION reports as follows:

A health care facility is a workplace as well as a place for receiving and giving care. Health care facilities around the world employ over 59 million workers who are exposed to a complex variety of health and safety hazards everyday including:

• biological hazards, such as TB, Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, SARS;
• chemical hazards, such as, glutaraldehyde, ethylene oxide;
• physical hazards, such as noise, radiation, slips trips and falls;
• ergonomic hazards, such as heavy lifting;
• psychosocial hazards, such as shiftwork, violence and stress;
• fire and explosion hazards, such as using oxygen, alcohol sanitizing gels; and
• electrical hazards, such as frayed electrical cords.

Health-care workers (HCWs) need protection from these workplace hazards just as much as do mining or construction workers. Yet, because their job is to care for the sick and injured, HCWs are often viewed as “immune” to injury or illness. Their patients come first. They are often expected to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of their patients. Indeed health protecting health-care workers has the added benefit to contributing to quality patient care and health system strengthening. Some of the same measures to protect patients from infections, such as adequate staffing, protect health-care workers from injury.

The 2006 World Health Report Working Together for Health on human resources reported on a global shortage of health personnel which had reached crisis level in 57 countries. And called for the support and protection of the health workforce.

Unsafe working conditions contribute to health worker attrition in many countries due to work-related illness and injury and the resulting fear of health workers of occupational infection, including from HIV and Tuberculosis. The 2006 World Health Report Working Together for Health reported on a severe health workforce crisis In fifty-seven countries, most of them in Africa and Asia.

SOURCE:  WHO: https://www.who.int/occupational_health/topics/hcworkers/en/