One of the issues with health care today in the US is that there just aren't enough healthcare workers. The licensure requirements for medical personnel and the related educational investment costs create a barrier to entry. The pay and conditions are often overwhelming in the best of circumstances, so healthcare workers often organize and that creates an even higher cost for business. As a result, health care administrators are continually lobbying for additional categories of healthcare workers that allow them to cut pay, cut benefits, to hire people with fewer licensure requirements than others.

What you are experiencing is by design. Healthcare administrators often get to write the regulations (and often they are just tweaks to agency regulations) for new categories like you fall into now well before a crisis like this hits. Sorry to tell you that. You are experiencing the same kind of issues that LPN's experienced when there were only RN's, and LVN's experienced when there were only LPN's and RN's, and nurse practitioners experienced before there were Physician's Assistants.

My advice is to work through it, be assertive with your rights, point out the inequities, and try to use this experience as a springboard to a better position as you experience what are trying circumstances. My sympathies and thanks as a care provider are with you.