National Nurses United

NATIONAL NURSE,™ (USPS publication permit number 0807-560/ISSN 2153- 0386 print/ISSN 2153-0394 online) The Voice of National Nurses United, July- August-September 2020 (Volume 116/3) is published by National Nurses United, 155 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. It provides news of or ganizational activities and reports on developments of concern to all registered nurses across the nation. It also carries general coverage and commen - tary on matters of nursing practice, community and public health, and health- care policy. It is published quarterly, with combined issues in January-February- March (winter), April-May-June (spring), July-August-September (summer), and October-November-December (fall). Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, Cal- ifornia. POSTMASTER: send address changes to National Nurse, ™ 155 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. To send a media release or announce- ment, fax (510) 663-0629. National Nurse™ is carried on the NNU website at www.nationalnursesunited.org. For permission to reprint articles, write to Editorial Office. To subscribe, send $40 ($45 foreign) to Subscription Department. Please contact us with your story ideas They can be about practice or manage- ment trends you've observed, or simply something new you've encountered in the profession. They can be about one nurse, unit, or hospital, or about the wider landscape of healthcare policy from an RN's perspective. They can be humorous, or a matter of life and death. If you're a writer and would like to contribute an article, please let us know. You can reach us at nationalnurse@nationalnursesunited.org EXECUTIVE EDITOR Bonnie Castillo, RN EDITOR Lucia Hwang GRAPHIC DESIGN Jonathan Wieder COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Sarah Cecile CONTRIBUTORS Rachel Berger, Charles Idelson, Kari Jones, Amber Smigiel, Chuleenan Svetvilas PHOTOGRAPHY Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes, Choppy Oshiro during covid, we're sure many of you often lose your sense of time. We certainly do. It's hard to believe that we are almost a year into this pan- demic in the United States, with no end in sight. And yet seems like just yesterday that we nurses were warning the nation that we weren't ready for this virus and about the steps we should take so that we wouldn't end up exactly where we are now: more than 8.4 million cases, more than 220,000 dead, new infection numbers reaching all- time highs, and winter flu season just now here. We won't sugarcoat it. It's bad. Terrible. A nightmare. And we nurses are tired. So tired. We've been in the thick of this dis- aster since the beginning. We're tired of our employers, elected officials, public agencies, and this presidential administration valuing profits over people, over the lives of us nurses and health care workers. We understand the anger and frustration you must be feeling, because we feel it, too. We nurses know what we as a country need to do, should be doing. But we must get our priorities straight, follow the science, and push our leaders to do the right thing. The powers that be have shown that they won't do it on their own, so it's up to us to give them no other choice. It's the same fight we've been fighting all along as nurses in this money-driven health care system, only now the stakes are even higher. We know it's exhausting to be doing double, triple duty: doing our regular nursing shift as well as challenging management and lobbying our representa- tives and public health agencies, and then going home and taking care of our families and ourselves. Sometimes it feels like too much. If it does feel like too much, pause and take care of your- self. Our own mental health is just as important as all the other things in life. But after you rest, do come back ready to fight. Fighting back as a group works. It works. We would be even worse off without our union solidarity, our collective strength. We have so, so many examples of this— even during Covid. In this issue, we cover pretty much everything that's been happening with Covid since around June, and it's a lot. That's where that time warp we just mentioned comes in. It's amazing to see what we've accomplished as a union dur- ing this pandemic. We can't resist mentioning that our executive director, Bonnie Castillo, RN, was honored by Time100 as one of the most influential people in the world! It is also sobering to think of how much more work there is to do. By the time you are reading this, we will have decided the presidency. No matter who won, nurses will and must continue the struggle for health, social, and economic justice. That's our eternal fight—through the end of time. Deborah Burger, RN | Jean Ross, RN | Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN National Nurses United Presidents Letter from the NNU presidents Stay connected FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/NationalNurses TWITTER: @RNmagazine, @NationalNurses FLICKR: www.flickr.com/nationalnursesunited VIMEO: www.vimeo.com/NationalNursesUnited DIGITAL MAGAZINE: NationalNurseMagazine.org

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