What is advocacy in nursing?

Sep 5

What is advocacy in nursing?

The National Nurse March is an excellent example of advocacy in nursing and I’m excited to explore it with you here!

Where were you in 2020 when the world came to a complete halt? Working from home?

Laid off?
Afraid to leave the house?
Unsure about seeing people you love, not knowing who would get COVID next?

2020 was scary for everyone!

Called essential, heroes, the world grateful nurses continued to show up at work every day. People cheering and clapping while the medical field continued to show up day in and day out.

But what was going through their minds heading into the places the world wanted to avoid?

I know what was going through mine...

What if I get sick? What if I die?

What if I get my husband sick?

What if the hospital runs out of PPE?

I’m terrified **looking at the bills** can I afford to take some time off?

I’ll feel guilty if I quit when I know people need me most but I’ll hate myself if I get my husband sick and he dies.

Nurse Empowerment Coach Christen in navy scrubs empowering nurses.

Hi I’m Christen

I was just a tired, exhausted, burned out nurse dreading work and imaging what I could do instead of nursing. It affected me professionally AND personally!

Now I help nurses struggling or wanting to prevent the struggle using the same strategies and tools I used to create a happier, healthier life.

Get your free 5 minute visualization to decrease your stress, increase your peace, and sleep better tonight….naturally!

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Healthcare entities can’t function without nurses.

I’ll never forget when my speech teacher said “if you want something done in a hospital you tell a nurse.”

Doctors give orders, but nurses are the ones that make the world go ‘round.

What you may not know is while people were screaming “heroes” and clapping from the streets, nurses were inside healthcare walls

killing themselves (metaphorically & literally),
worrying about getting sick,
being furloughed
getting sick at work while hospitals played games deciding if you qualified for worker’s comp. or not
defaulting on mortgages/rent, scraping by to afford groceries, having vehicles repossessed due to inability to pay, and more
dealing with stress of placing patients in body bag after body bag while the public yelled in their face COVID wasn’t real
Forcing doctors to go in COVID rooms…

That’s right….it’s true. Behind closed doors your nurse was fighting for you to have your doctor and other care team members to in your room to take care of you.

(Keep in mind, there were several reasons certain supportive staff weren’t actually allowed to go in COVID rooms, conserving PPE being one of them).

Bedside nurses were going in rooms when others were afraid to or trying to get out of having to do it.

Constantly giving, sacrificing, caring for others when they were terrified themselves.

Non-stop fear….death…feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders.

All this was just since COVID…

However, the truth is there were issues long before the pandemic. COVID made it worse and shed a light on many of the very real issues nurses face.

Bullying among nurses is a well-known, legitimate problem.

Hospitals were already intentionally short staffing nurses and have been talking about a nursing shortage since the 90s. While some information about a nursing shortage may be true, the real problem is there’s a shortage of nurses unwilling to work in unsafe, unsupportive environments anymore.

A group of nurses from Michigan started a movement that stretched nationwide and, in my opinion, was an amazing way to quickly and effectively start bringing nurses together.

Nursing Before COVID

Bullying among nurses is a well-known, legitimate problem. Many older nurses operate under an old school type of thinking which is this:

“nurses eat their young”

Meaning instead of experienced nurses showing new nurses the ropes and how to succeed, they throw them to the wolves and hope the newbies are able to swim.

If they can’t, they’re known as weak and unable to cut it. The new nurses drown, hate coming to work, don’t grow, and inevitably leave the job or the profession. Staff members are now forced to do more with less.

Is this the fault of individual nurses? Some of that may be true, but it’s really not that simple.

Nursing has always had its challenges being convenient scapegoats when others avoid being held accountable. A good example of this is the intentional short staffing by hospitals to save money.

Hospitals were already intentionally short staffing nurses and have been talking about a nursing shortage since the 90s. While some information about a nursing shortage may be true, the real problem is there’s a shortage of nurses unwilling to work in unsafe, unsupportive environments anymore.

When you’re constantly working short and trying to do more with less, you’re unable to take time to nurture new people.

Patient care suffers, and then employers, the very people who put you in the position you’re in, scold you for not being able to do it all. They throw you out to the wolves and you learn to look out for #1.

Another example is poor care by doctors. Nurses know who all the good and bad doctors are. However, if you speak up you run the risk of being in trouble or fired.

Nurses who enter into supervisory roles run the risk of being groomed into leaders who feel they need to hold other nurses back or sabotage their careers instead of lifting them up.

Nurses already In management positions know what happens, but they’re muzzled. Their own livelihood threatened if they speak out.

Nurses become riddled with guilt and exhausted on all levels: mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually.

They know patient care is ultimately suffering and feel no one is listening.

It becomes an overwhelming uphill battle where nurses feel nothing’s going to change and they just can’t do it anymore.

Veronica Marshall and her group of nurses from Michigan said enough!

They started a movement that stretched nationwide and, in my opinion, was an amazing way to quickly and effectively start bringing nurses together.

Why is there a Nurses March on Washington DC?

The past couple years have been a whirlwind for nurses. While I can’t speak for Veronica and her Michigan team, I can definitely highlight some significant issues of which any could’ve been a breaking point.

First, Radonda Vaught’s case in 2017 caught the attention of just about every nurse in the profession. Radonda was a nurse in Nashville that faced criminal charges for a medication error. Regardless of how you feel about Radonda, med. errors happen every day and it’s an incredibly easy accident to make.

Any nurse that tells you they’ve never made a med. error is lying or they’re too new so it hasn’t happened yet.

For more about why this is a problem and how it has the potential to make healthcare increasingly dangerous-see my blog about Radonda Vaught’s case here.

Then there was COVID. The hero era. Nurses are essential, they’re “heroes.” While that sounds nice, what you may not know is these heroes spent over 2 years putting more bodies in body bags then they’ve had to do their entire career.

Even Veronica Marshall, the leader of the national nurses march states over the past couple years she’s put more patients in body bags than she has over her whole 24 year career as a nurse.

Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon and one of the reasons many nurses needed to step back from work.

When COVID happened, the demand for nurses was incredibly high and the wages for nurses skyrocketed from the pennies they were making before, in comparison. Many nurses went to travel, make better money, and help where help was needed. As a former travel nurse, I can say travel nursing can be temporary solution helping burnout.

Hospitals don’t want to pay these new high wages, they want to cap the pay for nurses. Some hospitals are saying their entities can’t afford to pay the amount nurses are asking for and continue to be in business. Maybe that’s some true in some cases with smaller, rural, or community run hospitals.

However, it’s definitely not true for everyone.

Healthcare entities can be very wasteful with resources and not wanting to hold people accountable in positions where positive, effective changes can actually be made.

Funny story:

A CEO asked their hospital board to grant him a bonus for making budget or coming in just under budget in 2021....one of the years nurses were in the highest demand. (He didn’t get that bonus, btw).

Some things in healthcare don’t make sense by design.

One example is the hospital board setup. Most of the time, many people serving on hospital boards have no background in healthcare. This isn’t an accident. In fact, if you have a background in healthcare, you’re likely to be passed over.

Why?

If you don’t understand what really goes on in patient care areas, then you’re ready to believe whatever you’re being told.

Nurses are tired of the bullshit and the games.

They want fair wages and it’s a reasonable ask. By coming together and expecting better from administration, it creates a ripple effect and forces all of healthcare to rise up and do better as well.

So, to summarize...nurses are having criminal charges brought against them, COVID happened, increase in patient deaths paired with the mental and emotional toll that goes along with that, years of having to do more with less, watching patient care suffer, being treated like you don’t matter, then hospitals trying to cap pay for nurses are just some of the reasons nurses are putting their foot down!

While I can’t speak for what the exact breaking point was for Veronica and her team to decide to plan the march, I can safely say healthcare is a broken system and enough is enough.

I’m thankful for Veronica’s passion and decision to take a stand. It was incredibly inspiring for myself and nurses nationwide.

COVID really magnified many of the issues present in nursing and nurses. We need to come together to save our profession and improve healthcare.

Most nurses actually love caring for patients and treat the profession as a true calling. It’s the politics, bullying, and other bullshit that causes nurses to burnout, become morally injured, or go running for the hills!

What is the National Nurses March?

The National Nurses March is a movement calling for nurses to march on Washington DC May 12, 2022. The month of the march is perfect as it’s mental health awareness month and many in healthcare are struggling. Suicide rates for nurses are doctors are higher than those for the general public.

The date is significant as well falling on Florence Nightingale’s birthday 202 years ago. For those of you outside of nursing, Florence Nightingale is known as the “Mother of Nursing” and many graduating from nursing school recite the Nightingale Pledge. To learn more about Florence Nightingale, click here .

There are a few things nurses are advocating for in healthcare:

Legislation on safe patient ratios, standards of care
Violence in healthcare
Prevent capping nurse pay and fair compensation
Changing the culture of bias and discrimination in healthcare

An excellent turnout of around 12,000 showed up in DC to march for positive, needed changes in healthcare. The movement was spearheaded by a group of nurses from Michigan lead and inspired by nurse Veronica Marshall.

Veronica and her team inspired nurses nationwide and those who couldn’t make it to DC organized marches in solidarity with DC in their home state.

To date, I don’t know one state that didn’t have a march scheduled.

Here in Arizona we had a little over 100 nurses show up to march at the Arizona Capitol and the Board of Nursing. Coaching with Christen was a major sponsor for the National Nurses March Arizona.

(picture of the Arizona organizers and sponsors)

What legislation do you need to be aware of?

HR1165: Patient Safety Act of 1997 (105th Congress)

and more recently

HR1195: Workplace Violence Prevention for HealthCare and Social Service Workers Act

HR3165 & S1567: Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2021

H.R. 2663: Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers

S. 1113: Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023

Oregon’s HB 2697 and Pennsylvania’s House Bill 106 Patient Safety Act involves safe staffing for nurses

In Arizona, we’re happy to report that Governor Ducey signed into law

Senate Bill 1311: Healthcare Workers Assault and Prevention Bill

National Nursing Advocacy Alliance

A new association called the National Nursing Advocacy Alliance (NNAA) is a PRO-nurse advocacy organization that helps and supports nurses going before the nursing board.

When we met with this association, we realized we had similar goals and passions. Instead of starting another association and going at it alone, we decided to join together with the NNAA.

Nurses are more powerful when we come together and under this association the goal is to make positive change for nurses in AZ and nationwide.

To learn more about the NNAA, click here.

Regardless of policy changes, nurses will continue to leave the profession if they keep putting themselves last on the priority list.

Change begins at the individual level. It starts with you!

I help nurses struggling with burnout and nurse life empower themselves so they can empower each other. Nurses are stronger together and the best place to get started is by chatting with me here!