FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rick Fuentes
(o) 651-414-2863
(c) 612-741-0662
rick.fuentes@mnnurses.org
Amber Smigiel
(o) 651-414-2849
(c) 651-202-0845
amber.smigiel@mnnurses.org
“With the lapse in the ‘Stay at Home’ order and the move to a less restrictive ‘Stay Safe’ order, the Minnesota Nurses Association urges state officials, hospital administrators, and all Minnesotans to protect healthcare workers and each other by increasing our supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), dramatically expanding capacity for COVID-19 virus testing, and continuing to social distance. Failure to protect each other will result in a dramatic spike in positive cases, overload hospitals, and cause the very caregivers we need to succumb to the virus themselves.
The Minnesota Nurses Association has reservations with the timing of lifting the state’s shelter-in-place orders at a time when hospitals continue to dangerously ration PPE, new supply lines have not appeared in state warehouses, and the Minnesota Department of Health still cannot show that testing has dramatically increased.
Nurses also hope to re-open Minnesota businesses as soon as possible, but, just as many other Minnesotans have expressed, it’s not possible to do so without jeopardizing the safety of healthcare workers and all Minnesotans.
Nurses believe that the decision to turn the dial to re-open Minnesota requires every Minnesotan to turn the dial to find more PPE, more beds, and more tests while protecting healthcare workers and each other.”
– Mary C. Turner, president of MNA
###
