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Nurses at Renown Regional Medical Center say Northern Nevada’s largest health care provider is failing to properly isolate and test possible coronavirus patients and does not have enough face masks to ensure hospital employees’ safety.

The nurses, three of whom spoke to the Reno Gazette Journal on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said they’ve been repeatedly forced to reuse single-use N95 masks and other protective gear during a nationwide shortage of equipment needed to combat the COVID crisis.

Renown simply doesn’t have enough coronavirus tests for all the patients who might need them, the nurses said, and hospital higher-ups aren’t the only ones to blame for the shortage.

More:Renown CEO on coronavirus: 'We would expect things to get worse before they get better'

Related:Renown gets tough on visitors in wake of COVID-19, banning most from seeing patients

Renown declined to say how many COVID-19 tests and masks the hospital had made available to employees. A spokeswoman did not directly answer questions about whether Renown had denied health care workers’ requests for additional testing.

"Employees who are currently providing care to patients with an active respiratory illness are wearing a mask during all encounters," Stacey Sunday, the hospital's manager of communications and public affairs, wrote in a Monday statement to the Reno Gazette Journal. "We are following the CDC’s recommended guidance for extended use and limited reuse of N95 masks."

Sunday said Renown "has a number of policies and procedures in place" to ensure patients with COVID symptoms are adequately isolated from others. She did not offer additional details on those guidelines.

Guidance posted to the CDC’s website encourages hospitals to help conserve supplies during the outbreak by minimizing the number of individuals who need to use masks and by using alternatives to the N95 respirator — the top mask approved for COVID care.

The agency also recently recommended allowing “extended use and/or limited reuse" of N95 masks “when acceptable.”

Hospital CEO Tony Slonim on Friday said he expects the region’s coronavirus outbreak to get worse before it gets better. He was also candid about the hospital’s need for more staff and resources such as ventilators.

The US has trailed other wealthy nations in testing for the virus, a lag increasingly being blamed on federal red tape.

Nurses say patients not tested

The nurses who spoke to the RGJ said somewhere between 10 to 15 patients are now hospitalized at Renown with several symptoms consistent with the potentially deadly respiratory disease, but haven't been tested because they haven't traveled — a practice one nurse described as “irresponsible and unconscionable.”

“The apparent rationale is if the patient isn't tested they do not have a positive test, and they are therefore ‘not infected,’” the nurse said. “In other words, if we know about it, we'd have to do something."

“This is not OK,” the nurse added. “I understand that personal protective equipment is in short supply. But nurses and other health care staff are not being protected in any way.

“Our patients are not being protected. In fact, we are doing real and potentially irreparable harm to humans who trust us to protect them.”

Two nurses reported that colleagues were allowed to work while sick, as long as they didn’t have a fever above 100.5 degrees.

"It's kind of frightening," one of the nurses said. "If you don't have a fever and you stop having symptoms, you can come in the next day if you're low risk, which is crazy to me."

"So nurses can easily be feeling sick and having the symptoms, then feel better the next day and go in. It's because they're not testing, so it's technically not a confirmed case."

Renown flatly denied that claim, adding that "all Renown Health employees are told not to come to work if they are ill with a cough, fever or shortness of breath."

The company was less direct when asked whether its employees had been discouraged from speaking to the media, writing in a statement that it asks all to workers to direct media inquiries to Renown's public relations team — a policy they're reminded of "upon being hired and as part of yearly required education."

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Nurses plead for additional equipment

Still another nurse who spoke with the RGJ said the "unsafe" reuse of disposable masks was a problem worsened, at least in part, by hoarding and overuse.

“It seems like it’s changing every day, in terms of what we have and what we’re being told to do,” the nurse said. “We initially had a good supply, but once this blew up we had patients and family members stealing boxes of masks.

“People at the hospital were grabbing masks and using them inappropriately, so we went through 70,000 masks in five days.”

“I personally think the one mask policy until we get more supplies is completely unsanitary and absolutely unsafe,” the nurse added.

Nevada health officials have tested more than 3,700 people for the fast-spreading virus. As of Monday afternoon, 245 patients statewide had tested positive. Four have died.

Renown executives have said Nevada needs to conduct many more tests for the virus. The hospital has postponed elective surgeries and encouraged more than 2,000 employees to work from home during the pandemic.

Allie Fuller, a former nurse at Renown who now works in both California and Nevada, has started a GoFundMe page seeking donated masks for hospital workers.

She shared other nurses’ concerns about the lack of protective equipment available in Washoe County and elsewhere.

“We are in a national shortage of personal protective equipment that is required to safely care for Covid-19 patients,” Fuller wrote to the RGJ. “This is not bashing on any one particular hospital, but as a country we have not provided enough safe protection to nurses, doctors, housekeepers, respiratory therapists, nurses aids and other front-line caregivers.”

She also agreed that health care workers are being forced to make dangerous compromises when it comes to their own safety.

“We are being requested to use the same mask multiple times for multiple patients and for multiple days, storing them in bags,” Fuller said. “We have also been told we will use a (surgical mask) instead.

“And lastly we are being forced to make our own masks from cloth if it is necessary. … As a nurse, I can promise you I will not stop helping the sick, but I am putting my life and wellness on the line. Please help me in this war against COVID-19.”

James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.