RESEARCHERS, HOSPITAL WORKERS ADAPT to PANDEMIC Milken Faculty Medical Workers Contribute to Observe Extra COVID-19 Precautions Awareness Effort Amid Virus
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Monday, April 20, 2020 I Vol. 116 Iss. 28 INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 WWW.GWHATCHET.COM What’s inside Opinions Culture Sports The editorial board Students are reconnecting Read about pay equity discusses splitting the to their youth during and athletic funding SA into graduate and quarantine by playing distribution in the undergraduate bodies. games like Webkinz. Atlantic 10. Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 RESEARCHERS, HOSPITAL WORKERS ADAPT TO PANDEMIC Milken faculty Medical workers contribute to observe extra COVID-19 precautions awareness effort amid virus SHANNON MALLARD SHANNON MALLARD ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR As COVID-19 spreads across the Dis- Health care professionals in GW’s trict and the world, researchers in the medical enterprise are working up to Milken Institute School of Public Health 12-hour shifts as the District approach- are helping spread awareness of how to es its peak COVID-19 caseload. combat the disease. Staff in the School of Medicine and Researchers in the school have ex- Health Sciences, GW Hospital and plored topics ranging from the effects of Medical Faculty Associates said they COVID-19 on displaced populations to have taken on longer hours, increased sustaining the health care workforce dur- safety precautions and shifted patient ing the pandemic. Researchers said the care protocols to prevent spreading harmful societal and health effects of CO- COVID-19. The precautions come as VID-19 drove them to research solutions D.C. braces for its highest number of to various components of the outbreak. cases in April. Patricia Pittman, the director of the Sonal Batra, an assistant professor Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health of emergency medicine who works Workforce Equity in the public health FILE PHOTO BY ARIELLE BADER | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR shifts at GW Hospital, said hospital school, co-authored an article earlier this staff have curtailed the use of Nebu- month detailing strategies for how to sus- lizers – an asthma treatment – and tain the health care workforce during the CPAP machines, which treat respira- pandemic. tory illnesses like sleep apnea, to avoid Pittman said government officials spreading respiratory droplets. She must ensure providers are prepared to said staff have instead opted to treat cross state lines to fill gaps in the health patients with respiratory illnesses us- care system because medical profes- ing inhalers and high-flow nasal can- sionals are disproportionately located in nula, a device used to provide patients wealthier areas. She said officials should with supplemental oxygen. adopt strategies redeploying furloughed Batra added that she and other hos- and underutilized health professionals, pital staff wear head-to-toe personal calling on medical students to treat pa- protective equipment – like hospital- tients and expediting licensing processes issued scrubs, N95 masks and gloves to maximize the number of providers – for their entire shift. She said she available for patient care. would periodically change her mask “Unless local, state and federal of- prior to the pandemic but now opts ficials plan for workforce shortfalls, the to wear the same N95 mask all day to problem of lack of access could rapidly es- avoid exposing herself to the virus. calate if and when infection spreads and “There are common things that we the demand for care surges,” Pittman said would do for critically ill patients with in an email. other diseases that we’re not doing fre- She said discussions over ventilator quently anymore,” Batra said. shortages and sharing equipment be- She said she enters her house tween hospitals are “meaningless” if hos- through a back door leading to her pitals can’t maintain an “adequate” sup- basement and takes a shower before ply of health care workers. Pittman said going upstairs to keep her and her fam- hospital administrators are laying off and ily safe during the pandemic. But she furloughing workers who do not treat pa- said the precautions GW Hospital has tients in intensive care units, which leads adopted have “mitigated” her concern health professionals to be underutilized. over contracting COVID-19. See RESEARCHERS Page 5 ERIC LEE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER See PROVIDERS Page 3 ANC commissioner drives fundraiser Miriam’s Kitchen feeds homeless for unemployed restaurant workers struggling through pandemic JARROD WARDWELL strangers for a segment of money for rent. LIA DEGROOT top of that.” STAFF WRITER the population that usu- “I’ve never had so ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR A University of Pennsylvania re- ally goes unseen, unno- many people say, ‘I never port released last month found that A local leader is spear- ticed,” she said. thought I would be in this individuals experiencing homeless- heading a fundraising Patel, laid off from her position where I wouldn’t A local organization that provides ness are more likely to require criti- campaign to support res- bartending job in the wake be able to take care of my- meals and housing assistance for resi- cal care or hospitalizations or to die taurant workers left un- of the outbreak, said she self,’” Patel said. “And it is dents experiencing homelessness has from COVID-19 compared to the gen- employed during the CO- has used her Ward 2 lead- a very humbling and very moved operations outdoors to curb eral population. Powers said many of VID-19 outbreak. ership positions within grounding experience. It the spread of COVID-19. the kitchen’s guests consider finding Trupti Patel, a Foggy the ANC and D.C. Mutual just goes to show that CO- Mei Powers, the chief development housing “a feeling of life or death cir- Bottom and West End Aid Network – a group of VID-19 does not discrimi- officer for Miriam’s Kitchen, said the cumstance.” Advisory Neighborhood local residents exchanging nate against anybody.” organization has moved meal pick-up “If they’re elderly, they already commissioner, said she food, groceries and finan- She said the many local to tents stationed outside its building have complicating health factors, and has helped raise more than cial assistance – to urge tipped workers who are at 2401 Virginia Ave. and has been they don’t have a place to wash their $32,000 for more than 200 others via social media to undocumented are resist- delivering groceries to residents liv- hands or place to stay home when unemployed restaurant donate to the fund. She ing financial support from ing in affordable housing since mid- they’re sick,” Powers said. workers through a part- said she has asked com- community resources out March. Powers said Miriam’s Kitchen She said Miriam’s Kitchen has nership with the Restau- munity members to send of fear that U.S. Immigra- must continue to provide food dur- added portable bathrooms outside the rant Opportunity Center, tipped workers who earn tion and Customs Enforce- ing the pandemic because the home- meal tents in the courtyard facing Vir- a non-profit restaurant subminimum wages to Pa- ment will deport them. less population doesn’t have access to ginia Avenue to provide community worker advocacy group. tel and the ROC team to Patel said witnessing local stable health care or housing and are members with a safe place to use the Patel said she hopes the receive donations. undocumented workers “vulnerable” to infection because of bathroom and wash their hands. ROC-DC Restaurant Work- “I did this all in my labor through fear and fi- “complicating health factors” tied to “When you don’t have a place to er Relief Fund, which be- personal capacity, but I do nancial struggle is “heart- old age. call home, you don’t have a sink to gan donating between know that people in the breaking.” “When you think about our neigh- wash your hands, you don’t have a $100 to $300 to each work- community trusted me to “No one wants to risk bors experiencing homelessness, they place to isolate, you can’t follow these er late last month, will know that it was some- going out to get these re- already face a multitude of inequities basic protocols to protect your health,” prompt officials to raise thing legitimate,” she said. sources and then to get de- and challenges that make them have Powers said. “We’re just trying to fill pay for subminimum wage “I had put my name to it. I ported by ICE or have the poorer health outcomes,” she said. in the gaps as best we can.” workers. was pushing it.” threat of, ‘Well the police “They have a shorter lifespan than the “I, along with the other average resident, and the pandemic ROC United is transfer- are going to call ICE be- See KITCHEN Page 3 members of ROC United ring donations via Venmo cause they know I come to only throws more complex layers on D.C., was immediately or PayPal to pay workers this resource center,’” she inundated with stories “as quickly as possible,” said. of our own respective co- she said. Patel said she hopes workers who were terri- Patel said many restau- the fundraiser will draw fied and petrified in how rant workers have been attention to the need for they were going to be able struggling emotionally a single minimum wage, to pay their bills,” she said. through the isolation that now $14.00 per hour for all Patel said the cam- comes with unemploy- non-tipped workers, in- paign has earmarked al- ment and the District’s stead of the current $4.45 most $40,000 from ROC’s current stay-at-home or- subminimum for tipped matching policy in which der, which Mayor Muriel workers. the company donates extra Bowser put in place March The D.C. Council re- money for workers who 31 and currently lasts until pealed a proposed ballot have a child or need either May 15.