ER Nurse Who Called 911 for Backup: ‘What Are We Afraid Of?’

Making the call.

As I got home this morning after a hectic 12-hour shift as charge RN in a 50-bed ER, I sat in my silent car for a moment to ponder how much has changed in the last three weeks.

Three weeks ago, overwhelmed by walk-in patients and ambulance traffic and severely short-staffed, I called the emergency services non-emergent line and asked for help in our crowded lobby. I wasn’t thinking about the repercussions, about the uproar or the giant target I sometimes feel I’ve installed on my back with my outspokenness. I was thinking about my coworkers, spread too thin, exhausted and afraid for their licenses, and the patients that I knew had been sitting in the lobby for hours, sick and in pain and mostly unmonitored. I had no idea of the attention that call would receive.

Did speaking out change anything?

Someone recently asked, “What changes have you seen in the month since you made that call?”

For myself, I’ve been learning to navigate in a more public arena, to […]

2022-12-01T09:51:43-05:00December 1st, 2022|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient safety, safe staffing|5 Comments
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Congress Could Learn from Global Nursing Unions

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

New South Wales Nurses and Midwives' Association rally New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association rally

In this month’s issue of AJN, we report on the formation of a new international organization of nurses and health care workers in June—Global Nurses United (GNU). Under the auspices of the California-based National Nurses United, unions from 14 countries agreed to work together to “stop the harmful effects of austerity measures, privatization, and cuts in health care services.” The organization also is actively involved in advocating for other issues supported by labor unions, such as a tax on certain financial firms (called the Robin Hood tax) that would raise revenues to help provide needed services. Saving jobs and making workplaces safer unite all unions.

On September 17, the group held an international day of action. Member unions in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe held marches to protest cuts in health services and advocate for better working conditions for nurses, better staffing ratios and the Robin Hood tax. Unions in some countries had additional agendas—in South Korea, it was to save the Jin Ju Medical Center; in Australia, mandatory minimum nurse–patient ratios was a demand; in Costa Rica, the member union called for nurses’ right to participate in collective bargaining.

Will these marches and […]

2018-03-28T10:28:45-04:00October 7th, 2013|Nursing|0 Comments
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Big Changes for New York Nurses

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

On Thursday, May 17, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) held a special members-only meeting at New York City’s Jacob Javits Center to vote on bylaw changes that will drastically alter the future of the organization, morphing it from a professional association into a union. One of the key changes had to do with who could hold office in the organization: going forward, only bedside nurses, retirees, and “non-statutory” supervisors (i.e., those not able to hire or fire employees) would be eligible for office.

Other changes include eliminating the position of CEO and changing it to that of executive director, in order “to better reflect the union’s democratic roots and greater accountability to working nurses,” and a decision to push for nurse–patient staffing ratio legislation in the next session.

The NYSNA, which with 37,000 members, was founded in 1901 and is the oldest state nursing association in the country. Until January, when it was suspended for one year, it was the largest constituent member association of the ANA.

According to ANA documents, the NYSNA violated ANA bylaws by engaging in “dual unionism” when its newly elected board of directors replaced the CEO with Julie Pinkham, who is also the executive director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA). The MNA had disaffiliated from ANA in the past, along with the California Nurses Association, and were founding members of National Nurses United. The ANA […]

2016-11-21T13:10:04-05:00May 21st, 2012|career|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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