National Nurses United

National Nurse magazine December 2014

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I magine being responsible for 60 patients on nights. Imagine that you can't change your patient's wound dressing unless the family buys their own gauze and tape from drugstores outside the hospital, and that they sometimes need to pay the hospital security guards bribes to get access back onto the unit. Imagine that, as a pediatrics nurse, many of your young patients are not in the hospital because of childhood ill- nesses or play, but because stray bullets during neighborhood shootouts have struck their little bodies. And imagine that, for all this work, you yourself are afraid for your safety at the hospital and are paid the measly sum of $170 per month. This is the reality of nursing in Honduras, a Central American country which for the last four years has had the dubious distinction of having the highest homicide rate in the world, and where I have lived and worked for more than a decade conducting medical anthropology research. Most recently, I have been teaching courses on culture and health to nursing students at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) and doing fieldwork in the national teaching hospital, Hospital Escuela, which is affiliated with the university. What can U.S. nurses learn from Honduran nurses, and vice versa? Upon closer examina- tion, lots. Like registered nurses in the United States, Honduran nurses ultimately find them- selves confronting a healthcare industry that puts profits before patients and, moreover, a political system that prioritizes and protects the interests of corporations above its citizens. Regardless of nationality or geography, nurses are fighting against strong socioeconomic forces that undermine the health of their patients: lack of living wage jobs, access to nutritious food, adequate housing, education, childcare, and safe neighborhoods—in other words, poverty and violence. Public healthcare across the world is under attack, along with nurses' scope of prac- tice, ability to exercise judgment, and right to organize to protect their patients. It is actually because nurses around the world are fighting the same fight that National Nurses United has stepped up international organizing of nurses through the group Global Nurses United, of which the Honduran nurses union, the National Auxiliary Nurses' Associa- tion, is a member. Recognizing that RNs must work together in their advocacy for patients in a globalized world where multinational corporations know no borders, GNU nurses coordinate actions, network, take positions on matters of international policy, and educate one another about healthcare challenges in their countries. 14 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 Common Purpose, Common Struggle Like U.S. RNs, nurses in Honduras are fighting for the health of their patients against the forces of corporate healthcare and privatization. By Adrienne Pine

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