Given this background, explains Dorothy Higgins, an ICU RN and chief nurse representative at HCA's Regional Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., the newly announced flu policy amounts to "punishment not prevention, and a medically inappropriate response to the disease. Where are the stringent patient safety standards we need? Where is the focus on prevention?"

"HCA knows full well that the surgical masks they are attempting to force on nurses don't protect anyone from the H1N1 virus, they just provide the illusion of protection, and that may be even more dangerous," Higgins continued. "HCA won't save the life of a single patient by going to war with its nurses. We are calling on HCA to work with CNA/NNOC to meet the highest standards set by the CDC to help us stop the transmission of this deadly virus."

"As an HCA nurse, I want to keep my patients safe--and I think HCA should contribute to that, instead of just 'masking' the problem," said Karen Clendenin, a RN at MountainView Hospital, an HCA facility in Las Vegas.

Source: Registered Nurses of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee