This COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything we have experienced within our lifetimes. Across the US and the world people are doing their part to help stop the spread of the virus by sheltering in their homes.  Healthcare workers, however, continue to report to work to help those who are sick and in need. You have clapped for them, perhaps written signs of support for them, or even thanked them when you see them in the grocery store. We are now asking that you speak up for them. Tell the governor that our front-line healthcare workers deserve first responder death benefits.

From the emergency room to the wards, doctors, nurses, technologists, etc. are stepping up to save lives at considerable risk to their own and to their families. For every senior attending doctor there are even more young doctors-in-training (also called residents and fellows) and countless more nurses. These doctors-in-training, along with nurses and physician assistants, make the backbone of the COVID response.

The median (average) student loan debt of a medical school graduate is $210,000. We typically think of doctors making large paychecks, but doctors-in-training make considerably less, an average of $61,200 for working up to 80 hours per week. For nurses this student debt is lower, but still considerable, between $40,000 and $55,000.

Perhaps you have read about the anxiety and fear among medical staff that they might get sick. Prior reports have shown that medical staff are at increased risk of contracting the virus. There is also some debate that the exposure of medical staff to larger viral burden places that at risk for more severe disease. Regardless of if that theory turns out to be true what is currently known is that front-line doctors-in-training and nurses in New York and Michigan (as well as from around the world) have died from COVID and COVID-related complications. Some of these healthcare workers leave behind children, spouses, parents who depended on their income to survive but instead will assume responsibility of part of their student debt. The families of our healthcare staff deserve better than that.

Additionally, as the hospital cares for those with covid-19, and those with non-covid related illnesses (e.g. heart attacks, strokes, infections) which don't stop just because of a pandemic, we need environmental services to prepare rooms for new patients, food services to prepare and deliver the food to patients. We need imaging technologists to come to the patient to get chest x rays and perform ultrasounds. While they may not be the first to come to mind as front-line workers, the hospital would not work without them.

We all agree that hospital staff are putting themselves in harms way to care for the sick, and they do so freely knowing the risk; because if not them then who?

For those that die from COVID and COVID-related complications we have a duty to help their families, which is why we are asking you to support extending first responder death benefits to hospital staff for the duration of the COVID pandemic.