I work for Advent Health as a patient transporter. Basically my job is to move patients around the hospital to and from procedures, admitting patients from the ER, discharging patients, transferring patients. That sort of thing. In this role I see anywhere between 20 and 30 patients a day along with dozens of nurses, techs, doctors, and support staff. This is all to say I interact with a ton of people from day to day, many of whom are known to be infectious. I understand there is a risk built into the job and I'm glad to take it on. I know I won't have this job for the long term but I'm really glad for whatever help I can be as we keep struggling our way through this Covid mess.
Last week I was exposed to Covid due to bad communication. The patient was stated to be non-infectious and it wasn't until after I finished transporting them that I found out they were still on full isolation protocol. I always wear a mask but there are obviously levels of PPE that should be utilized when around infectious patients and I was not made aware that i should be taking those precautions when i was asked to transport the patient. Fast forward to yesterday after some symptoms developed, I was sent to test for Covid and later yesterday the test came back positive.
Today they called to get information and tell me the quarantine procedure. I won't be allowed back at work until 10 days after the onset of symptoms. That equates to about a week from now. No problem. This is the obvious and responsible thing for me and for the hospital.
Here's the catch. Advent Health has asked ME to investigate the exposure and provide them with concrete proof that I got Covid on the job. It's like a needle in a hay stack trying to track down the exact patient and room where I was exposed. I remember the incident clearly and I know where about on what floor it happened but I interact with so many patients that there's no way I could just remember the patients name and room number off the top of my head and they want ME to look into it even after I've given them all the information I can recall about day, time, and location.
IF I can provide sufficient evidence that I contracted Covid while on the job, the only support they're willing to give is workman's comp which, due to some shitty state law that they've based their local policy on, only requires them to pay me 60% of my wages after the first week of missed work. I'm a full time student on top of this job so my work hours are stacked into just three days each week. So what this all adds up to is me having to find a way to investigate and gather proof of my exposure at work only to MAYBE get 60% of my lost wages from a single shift.
To add insult to injury the person I spoke to from HR said they used to help people out until they started taking advantage of it. Like it's somehow the working people's fault for getting sick in a high risk environment. The support policy for employees seems to now be “We can't provide support because a lot of people needed it”.
I'm a student bouncing off the poverty line like a skipping stone under normal conditions and now the hospital I bust my butt for is leaving me out to dry after I got sick on their watch! This place has refused to mandate the vaccine and has made it a policy to limit the PPE we can use when dealing with infectious patients. Each policy over the last year has been more wreckless then the last and now I'm sick and they will only provide super resistant and pitiful support if I jump through a half dozen hoops first.
My supervisor is great and the people I work with are hard working folks. I'll never stop being amazed by the nurses and everything they put up with on a day to day basis. The people that operate the hospital are amazing but the company that runs the hospital seems to view us all as expendable with their only aim being pleasing the share holders with no regard for the well being of the people who actually make the place function. My meager wages wouldn't have bankrupted this massive corporation but they refuse to help anyway.
I'm graduating in a few short months and will be using a good chunk of my time in quarantine applying for new jobs. I wish I felt like I could stick around and maybe find a job in the field I'm studying but I couldn't be more disillusioned. This place is a joke. It's like the Walmart of hospitals. An underpaid expendable helpful smile in every aisle. It's no wonder burnout and turnover are as high as they are.