National Nurses United

Disabilities:1 10/15/08 11:00 PM Page 13 different professions for muscular-skeletal disorders. Stories submitted to the website WING USA, home of the Work Injured Nurses' Group, confirm the many injuries incurred on the job by nurses nationally, and the ways in which understaffing, mismanagement, and the lack of effective lift teams or assistance cause untold suffering and job loss. Among the nurses' stories: An RN who worked in ICU for 20 years at a hospital that still requires manual lifting. The nurse reports that she has lost feeling in her arms and hands, has used all of her sick and vacation days, and is being forced back to work early by workers' compensation representatives. A 30-year med-surg nurse works in a hospital that has a lift, but describes the equipment is often inaccessible and primarily used for bariatric patients. She reports recurrent pain and writes, "No wonder there's a nursing shortage. If we're not injured, we don't want to be and so leave the field." A young nurse has herniated discs. After being denied by workers' compensation, she went to court. Although the judge ordered workers' compensation to pay her, they refused to do so. She eventually lost her home to foreclosure. Stories like these are why organizations like CNA/NNOC have spearheaded legislation requiring acute-care hospitals to develop policies and lift team programs to prevent any manual lifting of patients, both to protect nurses and patients from falls. In California, CNA/NNOC has, for five consecutive years, sponsored lift team legislation that has successfully passed the Legislature, but is vetoed each time by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. M any nurses with disabilities love what they do and are desperate to get back to work. Across the country, disabled nurses with inadequate healthcare coverage struggle to maintain their health. Nurses who can manage to do so often keep working in spite of their disability. They frequently keep their disability a secret to avoid the potential stigma or losing their job. Nurses sometimes drop out of hospital work, instead finding freelance positions with flexible schedules or becoming self employed to accommodate their disability needs because they are reluctant to test a hospital's willingness to accommodate them. Trenee Zweigle is a former ER nurse who now assesses elderly patients at a convalescent center in Eureka, Calif. She doesn't like to think of herself as a person with a disability. She focuses on positive thinking to maintain her good nature. But all of the positive thinking in the world doesn't change the fact that Zweigle's body can't function as before. She began as an ER nurse 22 years ago. Busy, dedicated, she didn't have time to take breaks. When she learned she had an inoperable heart condition that would eventually exhaust her, it was difficult to face. She shoved the diagnosis to the back of her mind and kept on going. Eventually, her condition caught up with her. Her illness is characterized by fatigue, heart palpitations, and occasional chest pains. "At first it really hurt a lot because once you're in the hospital scene and that's your first love, it's hard to give it up," says Zweigle. Before her heart condition took its toll on her energy, she tried floating to other floors and units. "I think I wanted to try everything, because I knew I only had a limited time," she says. Zweigle has worked with other disabled nurses, and has seen situations in which nurses were readily accommodated by hospital staff. OCTOBER 2008 "If I met someone who had major seizures I would not advise them to go into nursing. But I've even worked with a wheelchair-bound nurse who works with children, and she's right down there at the child's level," she says. Zweigle also knew a nurse whose hand was almost completely paralyzed in an accident. The nurse learned to use her other hand to support the damaged one and was fully functional on the floor. This type of adaptation doesn't surprise Zweigle. "So many nurses have to multitask anyway. We do the job of three or four people, and even when we're dragging out the door, we're asked to do another shift," says Zweigle. Ironically, it's not the heart condition that is her most difficult challenge, says Zweigle. Like the nurses at WING USA, it's back pain that's become her Achilles heel; back pain resulting from years working as a nurse. Zweigle can't stand for long periods of time. So she works several jobs that, by her design, accommodate her disabilities. But she recently discovered that her current healthcare plan won't cover a back surgery she hopes to have. T he evidence suggests that a workforce that needs nurses needs to embrace and welcome RNs with disabilities. They should be accommodated to optimize their effectiveness and allow them the greatest mobility in the healthcare setting. Story after story proves that differently-abled nurses are not victims. They are remarkably adaptive to their situations, and they bring qualities and a point-of-view essential to caring for their patients' health. The news articles Donna Maheady collects at ExceptionalNurse.com attest to the impressive work record of disabled nurses who perform the full functions of their jobs with minimal effort. A nurse in a wheelchair stacks medical charts on her lap and races down the hallway; a nurse with a partial limb effectively negotiates all the tools of her profession from thermometers to catheters; a visually impaired nurse positions an extra-strong light before she successfully inserts an IV. But discrimination is also too often a factor in these nurses' stories. Nurses acknowledge that they must rely on teamwork, compassion, and fair play in the workplace to maintain their health and their jobs. Nurses who aren't protected by a contract, or who aren't empowered by collective action, often go it alone. "My honest opinion is that every time a nurse with a disability puts on a pair of scrubs, uniform, or street clothes and goes to work, and then puts forth his or her best effort to care for others, it is a 'landmark,'" Maheady says. The reality of healthcare for disabled nurses is sobering. In a perfect world, says Maheady, everyone would have disability coverage. But since most people have to purchase it on their own and "make difficult decisions about how and where to spend their money," she says, many go without. As for the tide turning in favor of disabled nurses, Maheady is cautious. "I wouldn't say that the tide has turned yet," she says. "I would describe conditions more as a meandering river or stream." In some areas, she says, the gains have been substantial. In others areas, barely a ripple. I Erin FitzGerald is CNA/NNOC's video specialist and a freelance journalist who recently completed a short documentary on traumatic brain injuries. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 13

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