Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/739311
not safe for you, it's not safe for your patient.' Whatever the rea- son is, you don't have to be assaulted in your workplace." In addition, the INMO continues to fight for improving the patient care conditions that mitigate the potential for violence: safe staffing levels, shorter wait times, an overall better funded health service. In South Korea and the Philippines, protests against workplace violence always factors into nurses' demands for better working con- ditions. This spring, the Korean Health and Medical Workers Union (KHMU) conducted a fact-finding survey about working conditions of 20,950 healthcare workers at 110 hospitals nationwide. Almost half of respondents reported that they had been verbally abused, with the vast majority of the abuse coming from patients, their fami- lies, and physicians and supervisors. Almost all healthcare workers suffering such abuse hid their emotional response, however, and 86 percent of respondents even forced themselves to smile or grin. This psychological violence, however, manifested in other ways, such as workers' sleep patterns. KHMU found that nurses took longer to fall asleep, woke up more often, had more difficult returning to sleep, and had poor quality of sleep. The union plans to launch a campaign against verbal abuse, physical violence, and sexual harassment under the slogan "For Hospitals Where Patients and Employees Are All Safe," create model guidelines for eliminating this kind of abuse, post warnings, stage direct actions, and lobby their Workplace Safe- ty and Health Council. In Uruguay, Valeria Quintero, secretary of Sindicato Único de Enfermería del Uruguay, reports that her organization is making modest, but encouraging progress in winning greater protections for registered nurses. In recent years, the nurses won legislation that better spelled out the rights and duties of nurses, and the organiza- tion is using that language to carry out the work of a government task force formed just last year, on which the colegio's president, Sil- via Santana, sits. The task force aims to create an anonymous reporting system, which does not currently exist, and to protect and prevent violence, as well as allow early retirement benefits for nurses in recognition of the hazards of their profession. "The situation is very dangerous for us and for everybody," said Quintero. "Every day there is a violent situation. There's no protocol to report. There's fear and shame to speaking up because nobody wants to rock the boat." The situation is even more dire for nurses in countries such as Honduras, where little rule of law exists and a military-backed coup in 2009 of President Manuel Zelaya further intensified violence at all levels for working people because the state was intent on repress- ing dissent and protest throughout the country. Adrienne Pine, a professor of medical anthropology at American University, conduct- ed field work in Honduras after the coup and interviewed many healthcare workers in the nation's largest medical facility, Hospital Escuela, a teaching hospital connected to the National Autonomous University of Honduras. Because of serious underfunding of the health system due to neoliberal economic policies and corruption, patients had to rely on their families to bring them everything: food, medication, supplies. Nurses in the hospital were afraid to walk by themselves from ward to ward because they would get robbed in the hallways by gang members. During the coup, when injured protest- ers were being admitted in droves to the hospital, nurses had to fight with doctors and the police to prevent police from carrying away patients for interrogation as soon as they were stabilized. After the coup, the state used the gang violence as an excuse to bring in pri- vate paramilitary security to patrol the hallways of the hospital with assault weapons. Families often had to bribe the private security in order to gain access to the unit and bring the food and medicines their relatives needed. "You couldn't get a Band-aid if your family didn't supply it," explained Pine of the desperate situation patients were in. "Nurses were afraid of the security; everybody was afraid of them because they ran death squads. It's hard for nurses to stand up to management, to advocate for their patients, and to protect their own bodies with the military there, defending repressive agents of the state." The Honduran situation is a reminder that, in some coun- tries, registered nurses suffer the ultimate form of violence, death, as a result of their patient and union advocacy. Indeed, workplace violence is a problem shared by nurses around the world and nursing unions and organizations will be able to col- lectively tackle the causes and solutions through their participation in GNU. As Kiejda notes, "The positive in it is that it's an issue that unites nurses." Lucia Hwang is editor of National Nurse. M AY | J U N E 2 0 1 6 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 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 19 We can fight back. Here's how: Support the Sanders bill, S. 2023. It would overturn the bans on allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and on re-importation of drugs from Canada, among other signifi- cant reforms. Demand your legislators vote against the TPP, expected to come up in the lame duck ses sion of Congress after the November election. In California, pass Prop. 61. It would direct the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the price paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which under federal law can negotiate prices. That could save hundreds of millions of dollars in public money, and mean the difference between life and death for countless numbers of patients. Predictably, the big drug com- panies are expected to spend up to $100 million to bury Prop. 61. Continue the fight to end all healthcare price gouging and establish a more humane system with an expanded and improved Medicare for all. RoseAnn DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. (Continued from page 13) UNFINISHED WORK Nurses from Global Nurses United's dozens of member unions convened in September in Dublin, Ireland to dis- cuss common challenges, including workplace violence.