During the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s not just the risk of disease that has nurses and doctors worried. Across the country, thousands fear that speaking up about shortages of personal protective equipment and staff will lead to disciplinary action and possibly get them fired. Many hospitals have instituted gag orders to make it clear that publicly advocating for safer working conditions could lead to losing one’s job — and as Nicholas Kristof and others have demonstrated, dozens have already been punished.

I am a nurse, and while I am not currently working on the front lines, I know how those nurses and doctors feel. I was one of them: forced out of a job I loved because I wouldn’t agree to stop writing and speaking about the problems in our health care system.

I have never told this story publicly, and even now it is unsettling. I was naïve when I began writing as a nurse, for this newspaper. I thought that everyone involved in health care wanted all patients to receive the best care possible and that drawing attention to problems would lead to their being solved. Instead I was accused by administrators of “making the hospital look bad.” And even though I scrupulously adhered to federal privacy requirements, never named my hospital and de-identified staff members as much as possible, I finally received an ultimatum: If I wrote or spoke further, I would be fired.