nabeepchen

Just in case you were wondering, National Nurses Week coincides with Florence Nightingale’s birthday, May 12. I will save my comments on Nightingale for her birthday. But she is considered to be the founder of modern nursing (emphasis on the word modern), while at the same time, greatly assisted in making in low paid “women’s” work.

The history of Nurses Week began in 1953 when Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare sent the proposal to President Eisenhower. In 1974, President Nixon proclaimed a “National Nurse Week.” The celebration of National Hospital Week began in 1921 when a magazine editor suggested that more information about hospitals might alleviate public fears about them.

That is sort of amusing, because now the more information the public gets about hospitals, the more they do fear them. Medical errors, malpractice, killer nurses and doctors, short staffing, outbreaks of infections caused by superbugs, bloated bureaucracies, profit-before-patient, and so on. But I guess in 1921, healthcare was a whole different ballgame.

So how are nurses going to be celebrated this week? Are employers going to cease and desist mandatory overtime? Are they going to implement zero abuse tolerance policies that apply to all employees? Are they going to stop harassing nurses (and firing) who have the audacity to want to unionize to protect their rights, wages, and benefits?

Could it be that hospitals will institute voluntary nurse:patient ratios, so that everyone benefits? Are they going to make sure that every nurse gets adequate break time and time to use the bathroom, ie, by making sure that staffing is sufficient? Are they going to stop reprimanding for taking sick days (as opposed to telling them that they have to work or else)? Will they spend this week realizing that nurses are not a bunch of nitwit little girls who are want to be treated like Florence Nightingale-esque martyrs? Will they realize that nurses are not “angels in white” but instead, are human beings who have mundane needs like food, water, an available toilet, decent pay, health insurance, and require a safe environment.

And finally, will they realize that their patients are not “clients” or “customers” but instead, are sick and injured Patients, who require and deserve the very best of case–whether or not it infringes on their profit margin. And that patients would prefer more money was spent on recruiting and retaining qualified nurses, than in redecorating the CEO’s office with imported Italian furniture, and in paying bonuses to middle manager morons who thrive on cutting corners which endanger everyone.

So how are nurses going to be celebrated this week? I will be checking around, but I’m sure, it will be the same old same old. We love nurses, but do we have to pay them too? Don’t angels of mercy enjoy being martyrs?

What a bad nurse I am. Then again, I don’t work as a nurse anymore. so these things do slip my mind.

Roll out the red carpet, yesterday was the first day of National Nurses Week. I guess every profession has its day in the sun, so why not nursing? But the trouble is, most nurses would prefer that their employers do more than dole out cheap plastic made-in-Taiwan trinkets that break after five minutes, or silly mugs with “I Love Nurses” or “Nurses Do It Better,” or some other nonsense printed on them.

I remember a bag of valuable items that a hospital I worked at in Los Angeles once proudly distributed to all of its nurses. They gave us some hideous bubble-gum pink little bag with a plastic zipper that was out of commission almost before you could even open the thing up. In true LA style, it contained a blow-up beach ball, a miniature frisbee (and I mean miniature), a key chain, and sugarless gum. I kid you not. I should add that this wonderful gift, delivered during National Nurses Week, was made after the hospital tried to cut our on-call pay, tried to swindle us out of close to $1,000 a year (long story), reconfirmed their policy of not giving day shift nurses parking (and in LA that’s a criminal offense), and cut back the hours of unit clerks.

I dropped my bubble-gum pink bag into the trash in the lobby on my out. I noticed that my bag was not alone–it had plenty of company. Seems that every nurse in the hospital felt as I did. We didn’t need chintzy garbage to clutter up our homes, we needed real improvements in the workplace.

Happy Nurses Week! More on this later.