In a post for Harvard Law’s Bill of Health blog, Professor Kimani Paul-Emile examines the essential but often overlooked front-line health care workers and their efforts during the pandemic.
When considering those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic response, most people likely envision doctors and nurses. However, there is an often forgotten, front-line workforce comprised of orderlies, nursing facility workers, and nursing assistants (“NAs”) that earns very little money, has few protections, and is largely Black and Brown and female. Many individuals in this group are also subject to a unique form of discrimination: rejection on the basis of their race or ethnicity by some of the very patients they are assigned to aid.
The millions of people who make up this group of essential workers constitute a substantial portion of the health care workforce and earn an average of $13.48 per hour despite the risks they take. Their work, which involves bathing, dressing, and feeding patients; brushing their teeth, and assisting with their use of the toilet, puts these workers at high risk of contracting COVID-19. Nevertheless, early in the pandemic, many of these workers lacked or had inadequate personal protective gear due to the tiered system used for distributing this equipment. Doctors and nurses were first in line for smocks, masks, and other essential gear; last were members of this underappreciated group of front-line health care workers.
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Health care workers, however, have employment rights that must be respected. This includes the right to a workplace free from certain types of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity. Therefore, if a health care institution continually reassigns workers without their consent in response to a patient’s discriminatory demands, then it may be found to have created a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.