THEIR
DAY — Timia “Trinz” Trent, Frances Woody
and Anne Siminski, PEF nurses at Staten Island
Develop-mental Disabilities Services Office, enjoy PEF
Division 280’s Nurses’ Recognition Day
celebration in June.
Don’t
abandon your job, patients; stand up for them!
Unite to fight nursing shortage
By BRIAN HYDE
As individual nurses, it’s easy to feel isolated in
struggles to deal with workplace issues. But we’re
really not alone. Most of our problems are common to
nurses all over this country and even abroad.
And if we stand up, individually and together, to address
these issues, we can resolve them.
That is the message I bring to you from the recent
Professional Issues Conference held by the Federation of
Nurses and Health Professionals of the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Nurses from throughout the United States and around the
world were drawn together by the conference theme of
“Changing the Power: Taking on the Health Care
Crisis.”
Global nursing
shortage
The first thing we learned was that the serious nursing
shortage in New York state, actually extends throughout
the U.S. and Canada, and even as far away as Britain,
Ireland, and New Zealand.
While managed care has been a major culprit in creating
the shortage, for nurses the problem boils down to two
issues — pay and working conditions.
The U.S. has approximately 2.5 million nurses, and it
hopes to add 800,000 more by the end of 2005. But pay for
RN’s in this country fell by 5.6 percent (adjusted
for inflation) between 1993 and 1999.
Poor pay undermines recruitment, our professional status,
and our career goals.
But while better pay is an important start, it would be
only half the battle.
More and more nurses are saying, “I don’t care
how much you pay me, I am not willing to put my family
second. I am not willing to put my license at risk. And I
am just too tired to go on with this struggle. So, I am
not doing this job any longer!
Remedies or
ruin?
The nursing shortage is rooted in profound changes that
have been taking place within the health-care industry.
And the industry’s response to the shortage has
aggravated the problem.
John August, who heads healthcare organizing at AFT,
confirmed what PEF nurses know too well: both public and
private health-care providers have tried to cut costs and
make up for fewer nurses by resorting to mandatory
overtime, short-staffing, assigning nurses outside their
areas of training and expertise, handing over
professional nursing duties to assistive personnel, and
contracting for per-diem nurses from agencies.
While these “therapies” may promise short-term
relief to painful nurse shortages, they do far more
long-term harm than good, according to August, by driving
experienced nurses away from direct care.
Patients
suffering too
Such career choices are agonizing for nurses because we
are committed to our patients and to our profession. This
isn’t just about us. It is about our patients, too.
Patients don’t need to wait and wait for a nurse
when they need one. Patients don’t need to depend on
care from a harried and exhausted nurse who is on his or
her third mandated shift in a week. And they don’t
need to depend on aides and untrained non-professionals
to provide professional services.
Patients need prompt, skilled, professional nursing care.
Ask any nurse, “Would you abandon your
patient?” The answer is a resounding “No!”
But what are we doing, if we don’t stand up for our
patients? For quality health care? For reasonable work
schedules, and full staffing? If we don’t lobby our
legislators for change? Or become active in our
profession to address the issues? Or protect the Nurse
Practice Act?
If we don’t stand up for these things, aren’t
we, in effect, abandoning our patients and ourselves?
Stand up
We are not helpless bystanders. We can file contract
grievances, call in the Health Department, participate
when the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health
Organizations (JCAHO) surveys our worksites, put our
nursing issues on our labor-management agenda, contact
our legislators, and work with our union leaders and
staff.
While we can’t refuse an objectionable assignment,
we can notify PEF and turn in a PEF “Protest of
Assignment Form” to our supervisor and the union.
Yes, there is a world-wide nursing shortage, and
we’ve been through this before. Remember the early
1980s? We know how our employers have chosen to respond.
But what will make the difference today, is how we
respond!
Let’s make nursing a profession where we can go home
at the end of the workday, instead of the end of the
whole day, and be able to say “Job well done; I feel
good about my job because I gave my patients the care
they deserve.”
Stand up and speak up for our patients! Change the power!
Take on the health-care crisis!
The writer is chair of the PEF Nurses Committee.
Call PEF nurse organizer Lenore Boris at 1-800-342-4306,
ext. 340 or emailto: lboris@pef.org to learn how you can help the PEF
Nurses Committee stand up for nursing.