US hospitals tell staff to keep quiet about coronavirus working conditions

US hospi­tals are warning their employees to keep their mouths shut about their working condi­tions amid the coron­avirus — or risk being fired.

“Hospi­tals are muzzling nurses and other health care workers in an attempt to preserve their image. It’s outra­geous,” Ruth Schubert, a spokes­woman for the Washington State Nurses Associ­a­tion, told Bloomberg News.

She said the workers — who are toiling on the front lines of the deadly pandemic, many times without the appro­priate safety gear — ​“must have the ability to tell the public what is really going on inside the facil­i­ties where they are caring for Covid-19 patients.”