The Illinois Nurses Association’s Exec. Director Alice Johnson shared these remarks at Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 press briefing on Monday, April 13:

In normal conditions, Hospitals are one of the most hazardous places to work in America (OSHA, 2013).

Registered Nurses lift, reposition, and transfer patients, which can cause overexertion, sprains, and strains. In Illinois, the on-the-job injury and illness rate is 7.9 per 1,000 RNs.

These are not normal times, and nurses not only face these hazards but are now on the front lines of the fight against a deadly pandemic. Every day, they go into work risking their own health and safety, as well as the safety of their families.

More than 200 doctors and nurses across the world have been lost to this pandemic. In Illinois, nurses in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, mental health centers and correctional facilities go in every day to take care of their patients, facing this same risk. As a result of their sacrifice, nurses in Illinois are starting to get sick and infected.

Sadly, we have seen some employers argue with nurses about where they became infected, completely ignoring the obvious risk created by the work that they do every day. Nurses should not be left to deal with the long term and costly consequences of becoming infected with COVID-19 on their own.

On behalf of the Illinois Nurses Association, we want to thank Governor J.B. Pritzker for making this important change in the law to see that nurses and all essential workers receive their rightful benefits under Illinois worker’s compensation law. Due to this change, there will now be a fair and reasonable presumption that a nurse who becomes infected with COVID-19 during this crisis became infected on the job, which will then ensure that she receives the worker’s compensation benefits that are rightly deserved. Again, thank you on behalf of the nurses of Illinois.

You can watch the recorded remarks here.