The nation’s largest union of registered nurses Wednesday called on President Barack Obama to mandate uniform standards at U.S. hospitals to protect health care workers from the Ebola virus.

“Not one more patient, nurse or health care worker should be put at risk due to a lack of health care facility preparedness,” National Nurses United wrote in a letter to the president. “The United States should be setting the example on how to contain and eradicate the Ebola virus.”

The union is demanding protective equipment including hazmat suits and respirators for all workers treating Ebola patients.

The group also wants a minimum of two nurses assigned to each patient and ongoing training for protection from Ebola.

“We would not send soldiers to the battlefield without armor and weapons,” RoseAnn DeMoro, the union’s executive director, said in a conference call Wednesday with more than 11,000 nurses.

Nurses on the call described inadequate preparations at their hospitals. Protective gear consisted of generic gowns, cheap gloves and ill-fitting face masks, some said.

In an informal survey of more than 2,300 nurses at 780 facilities across the country, the union found that training was lacking.

About 40 percent of the nurses said their hospitals had insufficient supplies of eye protection. A similar percentage reported a shortage of fluid-resistant gowns.