“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”
John F. Kennedy
In this election year there is no escaping the news of the day with one scary scenario after another, name calling and threats. It is all too tempting to turn off the news and just hope for the best. But unlike being tempted by a second dessert or a larger glass of wine, turning away from engaging in politics and policy in 2024 has real costs for nurses, nursing and, perhaps most importantly, our patients of today and tomorrow. The Kaiser Family Fund, a non-profit, has an important crib sheet Unraveling the Mysteries of Biden vs. Trump on Health Care | KFF. It won’t take you long to read but the information is essential for professional nurses.
Health care policy, like everything else, is changing quickly and dramatically. Until two years ago with the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, abortion was legal under federal law until fetal viability (usually 22 weeks). Now 14 states (more than ¼ of states) ban abortion outright and a total of 27 states have restrictions, some as short as 6 weeks when many women do not even know they are pregnant.
More changes are in the offing regarding reproductive issues including IVF and contraception. We are going back to the “good old days” at warp speed. As a 20-something nurse I worked Maternity and Infant Nursing and will always remember the sweet twelve-year-old girl who had just delivered a baby after being impregnated by her grandfather. Septic abortions took the lives of women. Tragedies like these were commonplace until Roe v Wade in 1973. We can act! A coalition of women, certainly including nurses, worked to get abortion covered in the Constitution of Vermont where we live. We can’t stand by with our patients at risk – whether because of lack of insurance, challenges of accessibility, health disparities or any other cause.
If nurses don’t stand up and speak out, someone will fill the vacuum. Frequently nurses are not at the table, and it matters a lot. If nurses are not part of the action on important policy decisions, then who is, and will be, making the important decisions? Health care policy, including nursing, is being made every day by doctors, administrators, the Supreme Court, legislators and the health care industry lobbyists. The public trusts nurses. The 2023 Gallup poll shows nurses at the top of the professions and are trusted by 78% of the public (doctors are at 56%). Members of Congress and Senators are at the bottom.
After 64 years as a nurse, many unsolved issues are the same or worse than when I graduated, not just the demise of reproductive freedom. In this country, we should be ashamed of our worsened maternal and infant mortality, particularly for women of color. We can’t be proud of divergent care based on insurance coverage with 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid and politicians, particularly Donald Trump, aiming at the demise of the ACA. We see dismal health outcomes compared to other countries. The crying need for more nurses and nurse educators means short staffing for nursing care. The list goes on and on. Some of these are just political differences with a vast divide in this country BUT part of it is that our voices are all-too-often silent.
I have worked on nursing issues at the local, state, national and international levels. It has given me a view of what we can do together and how much other countries have moved ahead of us. In 1973 I was a Delegate for the United States to the UN International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization session in Geneva to draft an international convention on the life and working conditions of nurses. I was blown away when the moderator went around the room to ask each country what nurses received by law for time off and benefits. Six weeks or at least one month’s vacation, sabbaticals, generous sick leave, paid maternity leave, paid childcare were the answers. I hated to speak for the situation in the United States more than 50 years ago and progress has been minimal with no requirement for paid vacation time or sick leave or paid family leave then or now under federal law.
There is much to learn about how we could do better on health indicators like mothers’ and infants’ mortality, life expectancy figures that surpass our country (we are 47th in the list of countries), cost figures for some other countries that are much less expensive but with better results. We can’t get there without nurses. More and more nurses need to step up, to have the confidence and commitment to stand up and speak out. Our personal contribution must be to educate candidates and policymakers about the art and science of nursing, present better answers from research about better patient outcomes and then make the issues real by lifting up the practical experience of hearing the concerns of a wide variety of Americans.
The odds are great. In the House of Representatives with 435 members there are two nurses. In contrast, there are 131 educators. There are a similar number of nurses and teachers in this country but their participation and influence in state and national policy is quite different. Simply put, the question is, “What are you and your fellow nurses doing to be sure your voice and the voices of other nurses are heard and heeded?”
I believe in the Power of One. Each of us can stand up and speak out. We can make a difference for nursing, health care and our patients. Here is a short checklist of ways you can move all of us forward. Register to vote and urge your family and friends to register. Check Vote.Gov for deadlines and the laws in your state (https://www.usa.gov). Bring others to the polls with you. Advocate for improvements on issues close to your heart. Volunteer for a candidate you believe in.
Remember, nurses can make a difference. As the quote from John F. Kennedy says at the beginning of this blog, “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.