Jhonna has been a nurse in California
for seven years, she claims she was suspended
without pay on March 23rd after she wrote
a Facebook post in a private group
for fellow nurses on her floor
about what she claims is going on in her hospital.
She claims her management got ahold
of that private post and allegedly told her
that she violated HIPPA and she was suspended.
So Jhonna, tell me what you think
is really going on here.
I wish I knew, honestly.
I was suspended, got a phone call from my manager
on the 25th of March stating that I was
officially suspended until further notice
and being investigated for something
that I had posted on social media.
I asked for details and they stated
that they would not give me details
until I met with them the following day.
So I hung up the phone
and I immediately called my union
and told them what had happened
and they went with me to the meeting the following day.
Okay now, you nurses, on your floor,
you have a private Facebook group
and this is just for the nurses on your floor.
No one else can search it,
no one else can see it,
other than the nurses on your floor
and pretty much this exists on every floor
of the hospital, correct?
From what I've understood, yes.
I know that ICU has one,
I know the unit across from us has one,
they're created by the nurses for the nurses
and they're only, primarily, for the nurses
that actually work on each floor.
My particular group contains about 42 employees
from my floor, not everyone has Facebook.
But it's a private group,
no one can search it, no one can find it,
you're only invited to be in it
if you actually are employed on that floor.
I know that one of your rules is
that you do not violate HIPPA laws
and you're being told by administration
that you don't need personal protective equipment
and they do have masks that, I understand,
are being kept in a cage
to conserve them so nurses can't access them
and you're given one a day
and it's not an N95, is that correct?
Correct, so at the time that I was suspended,
our floor had just been converted
to a COVID unit, meaning we were only
gonna be receiving patients
that were ruled out for the virus,
positive for the virus.
At that time we still had healthy patients.
What I mean by healthy is they don't have the virus
but they did have comorbidity,
such as diabetes, dialysis, cancer.
My concern at the time was that they were
the rumors were flying that our unit
was gonna become a COVID unit.
When I asked administration if that true
I was told that that was not true,
that those were just rumors
but in fact, two days later,
the CNO did confirm that our floor
was going to be the COVID floor.
You were told you don't need PPE
but then when you were suspended,
you got called that day
and said you had been exposed
and you needed to quarantine. Correct.
That doesn't seem like it,
that's inconsistent. Correct.
It can't be both, right? Right.
So, the day that our floor had become officially
the COVID unit and they started transferring
all the patients to our floor, one after the other,
I said, in a private Facebook group,
to the nurses that work only on that floor,
that "Heads up, our floor is now the COVID floor,
"be careful," 'cause I want to warn my staff
what they're about to walk into for night shift.
These patients were being put into rooms
with the doors wide open,
they're not in negative pressure rooms,
they're not in any other special room
and some of the neighbors to these patients
are patients that don't have the virus,
who are just there because their sick.
Well that just seems terribly inconsistent
and look, we're out of time here,
but I want to be sure that I understand this right.
You truly believe you were suspended
for speaking up about safety of the nurses
and other nurses have been dismissed
for speaking up as well, correct?
Correct, their reasoning for suspending me
was for violation of HIPPA.
I know HIPPA like the back of my hand,
I did not violate HIPPA by talking about COVID
with my staff members.
It is absolutely necessary to be protected
and there's approximately three million nurses
in the United States, can you imagine
if they all get COVID because they're not
being protected by their hospitals?
And being suspended for speaking up
when this is a time we all need to unite
and stand together.