By Greg Larry
Cumberland Times News
CUMBERLAND, Md. — A Maryland union president said a lack of COVID-19 testing and personal protective equipment remains problematic at state prisons and hospitals.
Patrick Moran is Maryland Council 3 president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. AFSCME represents 25,000 state workers.
Since April, the union has been calling for substantial increases in COVID-19 testing in state hospitals and prisons, an ample supply of gloves, masks and other personal protective equipment, detailed workplace coronavirus response and prevention plans and hazard pay for staff.
Moran said Friday the supply of masks and other PPE have been slow to arrive. He said cases are going underreported as employees are forced to reuse PPE putting staff, patients and inmates at risk.
Roughly 70% of AFSCME members work in corrections. Cumberland is home to the North Branch Correctional Institution and the Western Correctional Institution. AFSCME represents about 750 employees at NBCI and WCI combined.
“The supply of PPE has been sporadic,” Moran said. “They have a supply in some places, but it is not readily available. It has gotten better, but it is in incremental steps and it is not enough to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for everyone involved. Whether you are an employee or an inmate or a patient, the measure in which it has gotten better is minuscule and it is starting to revert back and that is the concern.”
Figures released Monday on the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services website list 407 staff and 359 inmates that have tested positive for COVID-19.
In Western Maryland, one staff member at NBCI tested positive and has since recovered. At WCI, two staff members have recovered from the disease and an inmate has tested positive.
Moran said maintaining proper distancing in the facilities is difficult.
“It is a living petri dish in these places,” he said. “Social distancing, you can’t do it. That is why we said early, you have to have masks and gloves and they took almost a month to get it done. They actively fought us on getting masks.
“They said only people who are in a quarantine setting need an N95 mask. You have to provide proper masks to everyone inside a confined environment because you don’t know if someone beside you may have it. You don’t know. You have to have comfortable gear that is going to allow the employees to do their job and work around each other.”
Moran says testing remains limited.
According to the DPSCS numbers, 4,036 staff members and 7,892 inmates have been tested. At NBCI, seven staff members and no inmates have been tested. At WCI, 12 staff members and 1,652 inmates have been tested.
“The testing has been moving in some areas but not in all areas. It has been incredibly slow and staggered,” Moran said. “It is not as efficient and quick as it needs to be. The state hospitals have barely been touched. That is a huge flashpoint there.”
DPSCS announced June 8 that a correctional officer died after contracting COVID-19. The 20-year veteran worked at a facility in the city of Baltimore.
“You have to do testing often,” Moran said. “That is the only way to get a handle on this. Someone can test negative one day but test positive a few days later. They don’t want to test because they know they will have to send a big chunk of the workforce home and they won’t be able to get the job done. They have to have a good quality test that we can get results from quickly.”
Moran said inadequate staffing is contributing to the problem.
“What has really come out here is the blatant lack of staffing that has existed and we’ve been talking about for the last six, seven years. It has come to a head,” Moran said. “Morale is horrible. They are not able to get the work done they want to get done to help people in Maryland. It is incredibly unsafe because they are grossly understaffed.”
Moran said the state is seeking to revisit its contracts with AFSCME. He said the administration wants a “reopener” on the contracts based on economics.
“They have asked us to come to the table,” Moran said. “You should not be going after the essential employees during a pandemic. The reality is, now they are looking to come after any economic gains they made over the last several years. Now, they are going to go to employees that provide these services and try to undercut them again. They are going to look for concessions. How do you do that when you have already created a burden in terms of the workload and the danger of the work inside facilities and then you are going to come and say do more with even less.”
Efforts to reach the governor’s office for comment were unsuccessful.
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©2020 the Cumberland Times News (Cumberland, Md.)