More than 1,000 U.S. RNs, joined by nurses and other health workers from around the world, held a die-in on the strip in Las Vegas Wednesday emphatically ask – are we doing enough to stop the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and prevent the spread of similar pandemics in communities in the U.S. and other nations?

 Nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United in red scrubs were led down the Las Vegas Strip by a contingent of health workers wearing replicas of Hazmat suits to suggest the protective gear required when tending to patient’s with Ebola.

Nurses chanted: “Ebola! Spreading Faster! We Can Stop this Disaster! “and “Planet Health! Not Corporate Wealth! Save the Planet, Tax Wall Street! The nurses lacking protective gear or access to the “cure” dropped to the pavement in a die-in as a costumed Grim Reaper rang a huge gong.

“We are going to stage protests wherever we can throughout the world. It’s not acceptable that these people are dying, and that nurses who are the first line of defense for the patients in West Africa are dying.” CNA/NNOC/NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro said.

“It’s not acceptable that nurses in this country and patients are not protected, that we act like this epidemic is not going to come here, it is going to come here. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” DeMoro said. “The same thing will happen in this country unless we do something dramatically right now. When these patients come to your hospital, it’s not going to be the corporations or the people on Capitol Hill who are going to be there, it’s nurses, and unless we have adequate preparation, we’re putting people in harms way.”

“It is not ‘their’ problem, a West African problem, it is our problem,” said RN Jane Sandoval, a CNA/NNOC Board member. “We are all connected. It is our responsibility to bring everyone into the Ebola fight.”

CNA/NNOC Treasurer Martha Kuhl noted how the spread of Ebola in West Africa highlights the enormous wealth and resource disparity between wealthy nations and those where the outbreak occurred, as well as the profit-focused priorities of giant healthcare corporations. Developing an Ebola vaccine was not a priority for the pharmaceutical industry because they don’t think they make enough profits in poor countries, Kuhl said.

Participants in the action were attending a convention of the CNA/NNOC/NNU which has 85,000 members from California to Maine, including several thousand RNs in Las Vegas and Reno. Nurses and other health workers from 14 other countries are also participating.

The die-in on the strip followed immediately after a colorful skit presented at a plenary session of the convention, dramatizing the devastating impact of global austerity policies such as climate change, poverty and the health crisis of Ebola.

In the skit the dying earth is revived by RNs administering “the solution” from an IV bag labeled RHT, for Robin Hood Tax, a proposed small tax on Wall Street trades, embodied in HR 1579, that would raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fund human needs, including a robust public health response to the Ebola crisis.

NNU, of which CNA/NNOC is the largest affiliate, announced last week it had arranged the donation of 1,000 Hazmat-style protective suits for nurses, doctors and other health workers fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and is continuing to seek additional donation from garment manufacturers and hospitals.

While there is little indication at this time of the threat of Ebola in the U.S., the potential exposure of patients to Ebola has already sparked alarm in several U.S. cities.  A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General warned the U.S. is ill-equipped to handle a major pandemic, despite the federal government allocating at least $47 million to prepare for it since 2006. 

“This potential exposure of patients and healthcare workers demonstrates the critical need for planning, preparedness and protection at the highest level in hospitals throughout the nation”, said Bonnie Castillo, RN, and Director of CNA/NNU Registered Nurse Response Network.

“Our nurses are expressing concern about their hospital’s state of preparedness including adequate supplies of personal protection equipment on hand, properly equipped isolation rooms, as well as protocols and training materials in place,” Castillo said.