National Nurses United

S o many nurses have amazing stories to tell about fellow RN activist Kay McVay. But this is the story she likes to tell about herself. From about the age of 5, Kay McVay wanted to be a nurse. She had suffered from various illness- es as a young child and spent some time in Chil- dren's Hospital in Los Angeles. There, she fell in love with the nurses and nursing. She felt cared for and safe, and she wanted to provide that for others. She says she grew up in an alcoholic and abusive household, though, so her grades fluctuated; they were good when home life was tolerable and plummeted when things got bad. In high school, when she told the career counselor that she wanted to become a reg- istered nurse, he dismissed her dreams. "He said, 'I don't think so. You're not ready for that. You could be an aide, but you couldn't be an RN,'" remembered McVay, a comment which sent her off devas- tated and in tears. When her philosophy teacher Mrs. Webb learned what had happened, she advocated for McVay and insisted that the counselor test her for aptitude in nursing. Mrs. Webb knew and believed she was sharp, even if her paper scores didn't always show it. The counselor agreed, but declared that "it was a waste of time." McVay ended up ranking fifth in the state for aptitude for nurs- ing. "I was walking on air for I don't know how long after that," said McVay. Advocacy on her behalf made all the difference, and it was a lesson and theme that would carry throughout her life. "If somebody had not had the time or the inclination to be supportive, I might never have been a nurse." As a nurse, she, in turn, advocated for her patients. McVay, as first vice president from 1995 to 1999 and then president from 1999 to 2003 when it was transforming itself from an association of nurse man- agers and academics into a powerful, militant union of direct-care RNs, presided over the organization through many of its most seminal achievements, notably winning the country's first com- prehensive minimum RN staffing ratio law. McVay died Feb. 24 at age 84 after a lengthy illness and will be admired and fondly remembered for her immeasura- ble contributions to the nursing profes- sion, unions, and the interests of working-class people. Born Alyce Kay Teach on Jan. 15, 1934, McVay grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She remembered her commu- nity fondly as a racially integrated place where "nobody had any money but shared what they had" and "nobody ever locked their doors." "We didn't pay any attention to skin color or religion on the street that I grew up on," said McVay. "There was black, white, Filipino, Mexican, Jewish. It didn't matter. We're all together on that block, and we were together as a group. If somebody loses their job, every- body made sure they had food. Everybody made sure they got what they needed." After graduating from Compton High School and Compton Jun- ior College, McVay started a three-year nursing program at Orange County General Hospital in Santa Ana, one of the state's last old- fashioned types of nursing schools where students lived at school, gained clinical experience as students at the hospital, and were expected to work at the hospital after graduation. She graduated in 1958 and became first licensed as an RN in 1959. McVay graduated on a Friday and immediately started working at Orange County General on a Monday, shedding her blue student uniform with bib for her all-white dress. By that time, she was also married and had started a family, first a son then a daughter. In 1965, they moved up to Northern California, where she worked for Kaiser Permanente and what is now Alta Bates Summit Medical Center until she settled on Kaiser. In those times, McVay recalled, Kaiser was a great place to work. Unlike at Alta Bates, where she was required to fill out charge forms for every bedpan or paper bed sheet pro- tector used, she was simply allowed to be a nurse at Kaiser. "It was like family," said McVay. "The docs were good, and they were pleased to be working for Kaiser. We were all considered Communists because we worked for Kaiser." She said that Henry J. Kaiser himself would sometimes visit the floors and talk to the nurses about what "his girls wanted." In 1970, McVay and her husband divorced and she soon met and married the next year Richard McVay, an AC Transit bus driver who would be her stal- wart support for the next four decades. McVay eventually settled into inten- sive care unit nursing at Kaiser Martinez. 20 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 CHAMPION OF NURSES Kay McVay, RN and president emeritus of the California Nurses Association, dies at age 84 but lives on in the work of the union. B Y L U C I A H W A N G

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