April 15, 2020
Kaiser Health News and Guardian US
Partner to Honor American Health Care Workers Lost on the Frontline of the
COVID-19 Pandemic
KFF’s
Kaiser Health News (KHN) and Guardian US today launched Lost on the Frontline, a special project aiming to
document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from
COVID-19 during the pandemic. This includes medical professionals like
doctors, nurses and paramedics, and others working at hospitals, nursing
homes and other medical facilities, including aides, administrative employees
and cleaning and maintenance staff.
Lost on
the Frontline,
a digital memorial, will initially launch on both the Guardian and KHN
websites, but the series ultimately will grow into a single interactive site
to memorialize the workers. The resulting nationwide resource—the first of
its kind— will allow journalists at KHN and the Guardian to identify patterns
in how the pandemic impacts health care workers, shedding light on the
workings and failings of the U.S. health care system. Dozens of health care
workers have already died in the pandemic and that number is expected to
climb significantly.
The
series launched with a profile of Frank Gabrin,
America’s first ER doctor to die on the frontline of the coronavirus battle,
as well as profiles of a jail nurse in New Jersey, a surgeon in New York
City, a veterans affairs nurse in Detroit, nurses at hospitals in California
and Nevada, and a custodian at a hospital in New York state.
Information
about health care workers will be crowdsourced from family, friends and
colleagues of fallen health care workers, as well as reported through
traditional means. The series will feature profiles, photos and other
information about those who have lost their lives since the outbreak
began.
KHN
and The Guardian are inviting news organizations across the country to
partner in the effort. The project will link to local news stories on health
care worker deaths, and all content from the series will be available free to
other news organizations to republish. The project will reflect the rich
diversity of the U.S. health care workforce. The lead partners will translate
selected stories into multiple languages and make them available for
publication by ethnic media outlets to ensure they reach the many communities
in America affected by the pandemic.
Elisabeth
Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief of KHN, said:
"With
the help of their families and friends, we want to tell the stories of health
care workers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the COVID-19 pandemic:
dying from the virus, too often after providing care without adequate
equipment or protection. And in doing so, we hope to hold to account an
American health care system that failed them."
John
Mulholland, editor of Guardian US said:
"From
doctors to hospital cleaners and from nursing home aides to paramedics, this
project will capture the diverse range of frontline health workers risking
their lives to help others in this fight. A shortage of tests and protective
gear is increasing the dangers they face—and some will die trying to save
others. We want to celebrate those lives and their heroism, as well as
scrutinise the conditions leading to so many tragic outcomes.”
KHN
and the Guardian are calling for family members, friends and colleagues of
health workers to share information, photos and stories about their loved
ones and co-workers who died on the frontlines via this form. If you have a colleague or loved one we
should include, you can also email frontline@theguardian.com or covid19tips@kff.org.
Because
of the scope of the project, and the many categories of workers included,
this resource may never be completely comprehensive. It will function as a
work in progress – and build over time.
About The
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Kaiser Health News
Filling
the need for trusted information on national health issues, KFF (the Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation) is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco,
California. KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF and is the
nation’s leading and largest health and health policy newsroom, producing
stories that run on khn.org and are published by hundreds of news
organizations across the country.
About
Guardian News & Media
Guardian US is renowned for its Pulitzer prize-winning
investigation into widespread secret surveillance by the National Security
Agency, and for other award-winning work including the Paradise Papers.
Guardian US has bureaus in New York, Washington DC, Oakland and New Orleans,
covering the climate crisis, politics, race and immigration, gender, national
security and more.
Guardian
News & Media (GNM), publisher of theguardian.com, is one of the largest
English-speaking newspaper websites in the world. Since launching its US and
Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from
outside of the UK now represents over two-thirds of The Guardian’s total
digital audience.
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