MICHAEL CASEY and HOPE YEN
Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — As she treated patient after patient infected with the coronavirus at a Veterans Affairs medical center in New York City, Heather Espinal saw stark warning signs.
So many nurses had called in sick, she said, that the Bronx facility was woefully understaffed. It lacked specially equipped rooms for infected patients, she said, and didn't have enough masks, gloves and other protective gear to guard against the spread of the highly contagious disease.
Espinal, a member of the union National Nurses United, says she and her colleagues were told to do the best they could, using a single N95 face mask for an entire shift rather than getting a new one for each patient. In early April, she tested positive for COVID-19.
"I definitely b
