“I’m hearing widespread stories from physicians across the country and they are all saying: ‘We have these stories that we think are important to get out, but we are being told by our hospital systems that we are not allowed to speak to the press, and if we do so there will be extreme consequences,’” a North Carolina doctor who runs two Facebook groups for physicians told Bloomberg.

”Our oath is to do no harm,” said Min Lin, the Washington doctor who was fired. “I spoke out for patient safety and as a result I got terminated.”

Patient safety matters, and so does health care worker safety. Doctors and nurses are being diagnosed with COVID-19 at a frightening rate.

“It is good and appropriate for health-care workers to be able to express their own fears and concerns, especially when expressing that might get them better protection,” said Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor and director of Harvard’s bioethics center. So why are hospitals trying to shut them up? Because “when health-care workers say they are not being protected, the public gets very upset at the hospital system.”

A spokesperson for the Washington State Nurses Association agreed, saying, “Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care workers in an attempt to preserve their image.”

Hospitals traditionally have rules restricting employees from talking to the media to protect patient privacy, but that’s not what’s at issue here. This is about the working conditions faced by everyone in hospitals—doctors, nurses, physician assistants, certified nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, and everyone else. If they’re being put in danger, they should have the right to blow the whistle.