Host intro: Since March 20, when Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York issued an executive order that called for all non-essential businesses to shut down, and workers to stay home, many states across the country have followed suit in hopes of bringing the COVID-19 outbreak under control. While those deemed non-essential workers work from home, essential workers such as nurses, service workers, and elderly caregivers, must brave the frontlines of the pandemic. Naydeline Mejia spoke with some of those essential workers across the country about how it feels to work through a global pandemic.
AMBI: NAT sounds of Jessica Gomez, an In-take Coordinator at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, walking out onto her backyard to escape her crowded home in South Central, L.A. for some fresh air (Fades down as TRACK1 begins.)
AMBI: Room tone (Layered under tracks.)
TRACK1: I’m speaking with Jessica Gomez, an In-take Coordinator at a homeless shelter in Skid Row, Los Angeles––a neighborhood with one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. During our Zoom conference call, Gomez tells me about a decrease in residents at her shelter due to government buildings shutting down in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
ACT1: JESSICA: There’s a lot of people who aren’t having the opportunity to get shelter right now and that’s because […] in my case in particular, I work for the DPSS and that stands for the Department of Public Social Services, and so all the county buildings in LA county are closed, so usually our clients would go to the DPSS office and get a voucher in order to be housed there, ’cause there’s different programs, but for our program in particular you need an LA county voucher to be housed there, but due to the closure of all the DPSS buildings, they can’t get a voucher so […] usually we have, in our program, up to like thirty clients and right now it’s gone down to I think it’s like four clients.
TRACK2: These government building closures have left many out on the streets, and searching for alternative options.
ACT2: JESSICA: Even pre-pandemic our shelters would fill up and not everybody got a chance to, you know, get emergency housing. But yeah, pretty much if you’re not able to get a voucher, you’re kind of stuck outside and you literally have to find another way to get some other type of housing.
TRACK3: Social workers, like Gomez, aren’t the only ones seeing a shift in their work environments because of COVID-19. Healthcare professionals across the country are seeing shortages in PPE, the Personal Protective Equipment they need to protect themselves from infectious diseases. I spoke with a nurse in Arkansas about how her hospital is responding to the shortages as coronavirus cases in the state climb over a thousand.
ACT3: NURSE: So for us, down in Arkansas, we are doing fairly well, we’re just really trying to conserve what we do have, so like if we have a mask usually I am used to like wearing it into the room––wearing the mask for the 20 minutes I’m doing care and then I’ll throw it out because it’s kind of, you know, I’ve already used it, and then I’ll go to the next room, but now we’re having to use it [the mask] for basically the whole 12-hour shift, which is a lot.
TRACK4: As the situation becomes more dire, this Arkansas nurse expects many healthcare professionals to walk out on hospitals out of fear and lack of Personal Protective Equipment.
ACT4: NURSE: I definitely am showing up and doing my best; however, if I’m being told that I have nothing and I only can bring a scarf from home to take care of these COVID-positive patients then my life does matter and I’m not a martyr, so I will be walking out and probably saying, “I’m not doing it,” and so will other people. A lot of healthcare workers I’ve talked to, if they have nothing to wear, they’ll walk out, so that’s just the reality.
TRACK5: While healthcare workers grapple with treating infectious patients at work, outside of the hospital, these professionals face the threat of eviction by anxious landlords and even verbal abuse from the public––adding to their list of things to be fearful of.
ACT5: NURSE: So, people have been sometimes physically abusing healthcare workers because they think that they’re spreading the virus. So, that’s just a concern that I have as a woman, also, that I have to be careful and so I’m just kind of going straight to work and going right home [after] and I don’t stop at the store, at all, in my scrubs because I don’t want any negative connotations or abuse from just wearing scrubs, which unfortunately happens.
TRACK6: Here, in New York City, workers outside of the hospital face different fears. Joel Bautista, a student at Baruch College, continues to work his shifts at Paris Baguette in Midtown Manhattan during the weekends. As essential businesses, many restaurants and cafes have remained open during the city’s temporary shutdown. Commuting on the MTA, usually a rather safe and normal aspect of city life, has become an anxious experience for many essential workers as reduced service causes longer wait times and crowded trains.
ACT6: JOEL: Um, yeah I definitely have fears now more than ever ’cause when I go on the train I see […] I don’t know why […] the first few days of going to work with this whole coronavirus thing, it was empty at first and now there’s more people which has made me more anxious, but also I’ve worked with my family and try to like […] because they know I’m working and I’m coming back, so what we do now is we have a bottle of alcohol, like a small spray bottle, by the door, so every time I walk in I have to spray my hands because I do touch a doorknob to get in, so I have to spray my hands and everything. But yeah, I’m going to be honest I’ve been really anxious the past few days and it’s really, I wouldn’t say it’s affecting my work, but it’s definitely affecting me, in general, at home and stuff.
TRACK7: While every employee has the right to refuse work, especially if one feels as though their health might be in danger, a common theme among the essential workers I spoke to regarding their decision to continue to work through this pandemic was that of wanting to be there for others––from serving meals to those who need it to providing shelter for the homeless. Brenika Banks, a caregiver at Home Instead Senior Care in the Manhattan borough of New York City, feels a need to maintain her elderly client’s routine during these unprecedented times.
ACT7: BRENIKA: So yeah we have a cool relationship and I’m the one who […] I volunteer to do this every week. Sunday morning when I’m about to leave I wash her hair and I wash her hair like she’s my little sister, like with the shampoo and the Shea Moisture conditioner. She’s a white lady by the way, not that that really means anything, but I wash her hair like she’s of color. [laughs] I make sure she gets the deep wash and the good conditioner, like let it sit in everything while I shower her and then rinse it out afterwards. So I don’t know who would be the one to do that. I mean yeah, someone else probably would, but I feel like it’s good for me to still be there because I was one of the first caregivers that took on her case when she joined the company, so just […] she’s very familiar with me in these past, almost three months. So I know for older people routine is very important to them, and I feel like I’m a part of that routine for her. I’m a caregiver that she’s comfortable with so a part of me still goes [to work] for that.
TRACK8: As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the country, these essential workers are urging others to flatten the curve and limit the spread of this infectious disease by practicing social distancing. According to Governor Cuomo in a press conference last Tuesday, there are some early indications that it’s starting to have an impact in New York.
ACT8: CUOMO: We talk about the apex and as the apex [as] a plateau, and right now we’re projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations, and you can see the growth and you can see it starting to flatten. Again, this is a projection, it still depends on what we and what we do will affect those numbers. This is not an act of God that we’re looking at, it’s an act of what society actually does.
TRACK9: There may not be a vaccine available to the public as of yet, but there is one solution we do have to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and that is staying home so those on the frontlines can save lives. For Baruch College, I’m Naydeline Mejia in New York.
