A private hospital is allegedly threatening to discipline nurses who are refusing to treat covid 19 patients because they don’t have
adequate ppe according to an article in HSG today, which you can read here – ‘Private hospital threatens nurses refusing to treat covid-19 patients‘.
That email with a link to the article landed in my email inbox today, which made my blood boil!
If this allegation is true, then this is not only a shocking indictment, but it is also a breach of staff’s rights under the Health & Safety legislation as well as Employment Rights Law and this is what this video explores.
In previous cases of negligence against the Ministry of Defence, the MoD was found to be guilty of negligence for providing soldiers in war zones with inadequate protective equipment and Land Rover vehicles that were not fit for purpose and in 2013 the Supreme Court (the highest court in the land) ruled that families of soldiers killed in Iraq can pursue damages against the government, the Supreme Court has ruled, despite the UK government spending more than £750,000 on lawyers’ fees (using taxpayers money) in trying to deny responsibility for the deaths of soldiers killed in those lightly armoured vehicles, a freedom of information request revealed (as reported in the Guardian newspaper two years ago).
We are now in a biological war with a virus that kills, so why should nursing and care staff not have the appropriate ppe, and I think that any employer who goes down the route of disciplining staff who are refusing to work on that basis is heading down a very slippery slope.
This also applies to those of you who are expected to use force at work to physically restrain someone who may be infected with covid 19.
As I have said previously, the law that protects you has not been suspended, amended or redacted.
And the RCN seem to agree ……
To download a FREE Risk assessment on restraint and covid 19 (which can also be adapted to meet the needs of any staff working in an environment where there is a risk of catching covid 19) go to this link and enter your details – https://restraintandcovid19.nfps.info/optin-page-ra-2020
Please share this post. These people need our support!
Other blog posts of similar interest can be found here – https://nfps.info/covid-19/
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And if you are interested in doing a Level 3 RIsk Assessment Course then please check out our course here – https://nfps.info/level-3-risk-assessment-course/