National Nurses United

RAD_June 8/20/10 4:45 PM Page 11 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United Honoring Life Nurses who value people over profits understand that their work of healing patients extends way beyond the bedside ne of the most common questions we hear from reporters is, "Why nurses?" Why are nurses involved in the debate on national healthcare reform (presumably only insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, and the politicians they influence should have a voice)? Or in campaigns to limit corporate domination in the political arena? Or in electoral campaigns? It's a debate that has reverberated in nursing for a long time, as in the early days of the professionalization of nursing when some nursing officials were horrified by activists who saw a natural link between caring for patients and promoting social change. One of those activists was Lillian Wald who, just two years out of nursing school, is often credited with inventing the term "public health nurse" for nurses who saw the need to carry their work outside the hospital into their communities. She went on to found the famous Henry Street Settlement House in New York to provide medical care and social services for immigrant and lowincome families and the Women's Trade Union League to promote improved labor and workplace rights for working women. She campaigned for immigration rights, women's suffrage, and against war. "The call to the nurse," Wald wrote in her book, The House on Henry Street, "is not only for the bedside care of the sick, but to help in seeking out the deep underlying basic causes of illness and misery that in the future there may be less sickness to nurse and cure." Her close friend Lavinia Dock is known as an early editor of nursing publications and nursing education texts. Dock also marched and picketed the White House for women's suffrage, once spending 25 days in jail; supported unions; and was a peace activist. O J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 And Dock, like Wald, encouraged other nurses to be more active in social reform. "We owe the existence of our profession to the woman movement," Dock said in a speech to a large meeting of nurses in Philadelphia in 1909. "We owe it all that we are, all that we have, of opportunity and advancement; we owe it our social and educational and economic status...(and) our loyal allegiance and our moral support." The leaders of National Nurses United today are the descendants of Wald and Dock. And of Clara Barton, most known for her pioneering work as a Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross, but who also called on the soldiers she had helped on the battlefield to support the right of women to vote, saying, "As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine." It was their children and grandchildren who fought for nurses to have the right to form unions, to advocate for patients at the bedside, and in the policy arena, to fight for an improved quality of care for all. They understood that medical justice is inseparable from social justice, economic justice, political justice, and individual justice. It's a fight that begins at the bedside. To value and honor life over things, to value and honor the lives of patients over the commodities of a commercialized society or the profits of a hospital or insurance company. And to act on it. Here's how one of the greatest nurse activists of our time, California Nurses Association president emeritus Kay McVay, RN puts it: "Each and every person is a fellow human being. No one chooses to be poor, disabled physically or mentally, to become ill, or to suffer. As an RN I know this and I act accordingly." "Nursing gave meaning to my life, allowed me to for the first time to feel I was worth something. I had value as long as I wore that uniform. I somehow 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 was protected because I had value to others. To be able to give, to help other people who hurt, not just physically but mentally, socially. It is and should always be about others, not one's self.  I grew as a person, a human being through nursing." From there it's a short step to the next level, of working to change things for others. Here's the voice of NNU Co-President Karen Higgins, RN, who recalls her early days as a nurse: "As I worked, I usually saw head nurses who said they would take care of things, and you're just there to take care of patients. But as healthcare changed and the world changed, it became very clear that's not true. I was seeing changes going on in healthcare and patient care that were not good for patients and those of us who were trying to take care of patients. "That's when I became active. To make changes, to be able to keep patients safe, to be able to practice safely, to do what you have to step up to. To make your concerns known, take it on, and own it, and be willing to go out there on the edge and make a difference. That's what pushed me to get involved, and believing that kept me involved." Clara Barton once said, "The door that nobody else will go in at, seems always to swing open widely for me." The active nurses of today who won't accept inferior care for their patients or substandard conditions for their community are the true images of the values of the nursing profession. We should always honor the honorable. Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11

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