National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_OCT 2/9/12 5:30 PM Page 5 Maine RNs Convince Hospital to Pull Bad IVs E MAINE mily braley knows IVs. As an endoscopy RN whose patients require sedation, most every patient who passes through her department's doors gets one. So when her hospital, Eastern Maine Medical Center, in late November switched to a different brand of IV catheters, Braley immediately observed some serious safety problems with the new product. When nurses retracted the needle, blood still remained on the plastic tip, and sometimes the retracted needle would not stay pulled back, but pop out. As a result, nurses were sticking themselves more often as well as increasing their exposure to patients' blood. Patients complained that the new IVs hurt more, and nurses were finding that they often needed to stick the patient multiple times before getting a good placement of the IV. This was a particular problem for children and cancer patients. "As soon as we started to us them, we all had problems," said Braley, who has worked at EMMC for 12 years, and six years in endoscopy. "It was becoming a huge issue." Braley added that one of their patients actually refused to be stuck with the new type of IV for fear of the pain. The company supplying the hospital with these new IVs sent out representatives to familiarize the nurse with their product, and Braley even pulled one of them aside to watch her technique to make sure she was doing it correctly. "There was nothing wrong with my technique," she said. "It was just an inferior product." Coworker Judy Brown, the EMMC nurses union leader and an RN working in pre-anesthesia here who also uses IVs day in, day out, summed up the new IV catheter situation succinctly, "They just didn't work right." Braley surveyed a few other departments and within two hours had documented four pages of questions, concerns, and comments (almost all negative) with the new IV. Some DECEMBER 2011 of the managers had told Braley to just "deal with" the new equipment, because this is what the hospital was purchasing across the system, but Braley said, "No, I'm not going to 'deal with it.'" She invited the clinical manager evaluating the new IVs to the nurses' December professional practice committee meeting and presented her report. Within a week, the nurses had also developed a petition against the new IVs and an overwhelming number of colleagues had signed on. At the same time, Brown also lobbied against the new IVs with the chief nursing officer and other managers she encountered. Just after the new year, administrators announced that, effective immediately, the hospital would be stopping use of the new IVs and going back to the old ones. "People were very happy," said Braley. "Everybody realized we needed to do something and this needs to be changed. Everybody worked together on it. As a union, it truly shows how strong we can be if we all stick together." Brown agreed. "I'm very proud of the nurses for standing up and speaking up to make a difference, and for the administration to really listen and cooperate," she said. —Staff report Nurses Win Top Honesty and Ethics Honors, Again f registered nurses didn't so richly deserve every ounce of recognition that comes their way, this might have gotten a little embarrassing by now. For the 12th time in 13 years, nurses have been ranked by the Gallup Poll as the most honest and ethical profession. "Nurses consistently top the list, having done so each year since they were first included in 1999," Gallup reported Dec. 12. The one exception was in 2001, just after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, when firefighters topped the list. Some 84 percent of respondents surveyed said nurses ranked "very high" or "high" in honesty and ethics, nearly 10 points better than the second-place finishers, pharmacists, and 14 points better than the third-placers, doctors. Member of Congress, lobbyists, and car salespeople consistently rank among the lowest in the survey. Registered nurses do not wear this mantle of high public esteem lightly. "We hold that trust as a sacred bond with our patients and our communities," said Karen Higgins, RN, co-president of National I 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 Nurses United. "Patients and their families expect nurses to fight for them at the bedside, even when it conflicts with the profit motive of far too many hospital managers, insurance companies, and others in the healthcare industry who put the bottom line above patient interest." RNs should also recognize that with respect and duty also comes tremendous power to improve larger societal conditions for their patients beyond the bedside. This is one of the reasons NNU nurses have been so prominent in proposing a Main Street Contract for the American People campaign to demand things like healthcare and jobs for all, and pushing for a financial transaction tax on Wall Street to generate the funds needed to rebuild our social and physical infrastructure. "Nurses are fundamentally powerful people," said RoseAnn DeMoro, NNU executive director at the most recent convention to thousands of RNs. "You take care of everyone—not only your patients, but your families and your communities. Feel it, own it, because, by God, this country needs you." —Staff report N AT I O N A L N U R S E 5

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