National Nurses United

NATIONAL NURSE,™ (ISSN 2153-0386 print /ISSN 2153-0394 online) The Voice of National Nurses United, December 2014 Volume 110/8 is pub- lished by National Nurses United, 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612- 2908. It provides news of organizational activities and reports on developments of concern to all registered nurses across the nation. It also carries general cover- age and commen tary on matters of nurs- ing practice, community and public health, and healthcare policy. It is pub- lished monthly except for combined issues in January and Febru- ary, and July and August. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California. POSTMASTER: send address changes to National Nurse, ™ 2000 Franklin Street, 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 RoseAnn DeMoro EDITOR Lucia Hwang GRAPHIC DESIGN Jonathan Wieder COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Charles Idelson CONTRIBUTORS Gerard Brogan, RN, Hedy Dumpel, RN, JD, Jan Rabbers, Donna Smith, David Schildmeier, Ann Kettering Sincox PHOTOGRAPHY Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes, Choppy Oshiro what a year. You know, we think every year that there's no way the next year can top the current one in terms of nurse activism and influence (Plus stress and general crazi- ness!), but somehow it always happens. Just to recap, 2014 was the year that we chal- lenged head-on, through the Insist on a Registered Nurse campaign, the healthcare industry's plans to restructure us out of our patients' lives; that RNs stepped up our involvement in the fast-growing global campaign for cli- mate justice and the historic People' Climate March in New York City; that Ebola erupted throughout West Africa and reached the United States, where we National Nurses Unit- ed RNs were the only ones speaking up, demanding, and winning the highest levels of healthcare worker protections against this deadly, but totally containable, disease. As if with premonition, thousands of us RNs even staged an action on the Las Vegas strip calling attention to lack of preparation by our hospitals for Ebola just weeks before the Texas case broke. Currently, Ebola is still raging in sev- eral African countries and devastating the lives of countless families and, particularly, nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers who are struggling with inadequate resources and staffing. Just because we don't have any active cases on our shores, let's not forget that this fight is not over. And if not Ebola today, then some other infec- tious disease tomorrow. Yes, it's been an incredible year. One last thing we also wanted to mention has ramped up in 2014 has been our international organizing of RNs through Global Nurses United. More than ever, we nurses are all fighting the same fight: for the world's patients to have access to high-quality healthcare as a human right. In this issue, we profile the dangerous and arduous struggles of Honduran nurses in doing just that, and also offer up a totally revolutionary and wildly successful model of providing primary care that one community of Hondurans has adopted. Read the article if you want to learn what that is! Thanks to you, registered nurses, for all that you do at the bedside, in your facilities, in your communities, and for greater society. There's still so much work to be done, but we're glad we're doing it together. Deborah Burger, RN | Karen Higgins, RN | Jean Ross, RN National Nurses United Council of Presidents Letter from the Council of Presidents Stay connected FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/NationalNurses TWITTER: @RNmagazine, @NationalNurses FLICKR: www.flickr.com/nationalnursesunited YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/NationalNursesUnited DIGITAL MAGAZINE: NationalNurseMagazine.org

• Cover