There is no card deck in my workroom or at the nurses’ station on our unit. Last night I started the shift with a rapid response. If you don’t know what they are, it is when a patient’s condition has rapidly changed and not for good.  It is still always strange to be the one calling the orders and medication administrations not following the instructions…. I had just sat down to eat when I was called for the response. Dinner got cold. I came back and put the cold dish that my spouse had lovingly packed for me in the microwave, just to be called for another rapid response for a patient with a legitimate cardiac issue. Almost an hour later, my same meal is still in the microwave and cold again. I Started the microwave in time to be called to the ED to consult and admit a new patient.  I reheated dinner 3 times that night to eat in between the chaos of a night nursing unit by the time I finally had a bite or 2, it had lost its flavor. The excellent meal a caring spouse made was devoured while I caught up my charting.

You ever had that problem on a nightly basis, Senator Maureen Walsh?

This week, this Washington State Senator suggested in the debate on a bill requiring guaranteed breaks, meals, and recognition of overtime;

“By putting these types of mandates on a critical access hospital that literally serves a handful of individuals, I would submit to you those nurses probably do get breaks. They probably play cards for a considerable amount of the day,” Washington state Senator Maureen Walsh said on Tuesday during a debate on the Washington state Senate floor.

Walsh, a Republican, was arguing in support of an amendment that would exempt critical access hospitals, in rural areas, and hospitals with less than 25 beds from the bill.

“I understand helping with employees and making sure that we have rest breaks and things like that. But I also understand that we need to care for patients first and foremost,” Walsh said. “

So essentially what she is saying is screw nurses over to make sure that patient care is done?  Isn’t that status quo?  If I walked into the nurses’ station right now, I would be able to find that of the 8 nurses on the 40-bed unit, all 8 have been assaulted or understaffed at least twice in the last month (some of course more than that).

So as is typical with her ilk, when pressed about her comments she said the most obtuse thing I have ever heard; Washington state Sen. Maureen Walsh says her remark during an evening floor debate about nurses playing cards on the job was not meant to be malicious.

“I was tired,” she said. “I said something I wish I hadn’t.”

Ok, Senator you also said and I quote,

“Well, if we have an issue with nurses getting tired, let’s quit letting them do 12-hour shifts, let’s let them do 8-hour shifts. Like most standard shifts are,” Walsh said on Tuesday. “Twelve hours, I know they want it, but then they come back, and they start talking out of both sides of the mouth and telling us how tired they are.”  Why are you complaining? I know you want to, but you come back and tell us how tired you are.

Did you fucking hear yourself?  Do you know how many times I am exhausted from being short staffed or flat out abused by patients?  Do you know how many times I have had to start over with meds because “I was tired?” I cannot make that med error and give someone a wrong dose of medication and brush it off that way. You, Senator, deserve the thousands of decks of playing cards headed to your office.  You deserve all the shame you are receiving. And on top of it, you are so full of crap that you need an enema.  Your “apology” to nurses was nothing more than covering your political ass.  Would you have said that to your mother?

Mandatory breaks exist to ensure that as nurses we have uninterrupted time to regroup.  I don’t screw off on my break, I jam as much food in my cake hole as I can, chug coffee and water, and try to catch my breath.  If there is time left I pee.  You might think the last is a joke, but often you are passing the restroom when you are called, or something far worse happens and peeing is but a fleeting fantasy.

Breaks and better staffing are needed to avoid errors, and the evidence base shows this. However, like most folks of the GOP we make do with less is more, so that those hospital executives can turn the high profits they do, so they get our bonus.  My bonus last year?  The hospital chief, Chief Nursing Officer, and my division chief brought Christmas Dinner to the unit and left.  By the time I got to it? You guessed it, it was cold.

But accusations that she hates nurses are wrong, the Senator said.

“My mother was an RN for many years, and I have the greatest respect for nurses,” she said.

This nurse says bullshit.  If you did, shit like that would not have spewed through your mouth.  But that’s ok Senator, you were tired, and you played it off with the old, “It’s ok I know a _______.” Maureen, I know a couple of Senators too so… Well Senator, maybe you should have said what you said above to her, I am sure even she would disagree with you.

What this nurse/nurse practitioner wants to know is what is really your beef?  When you were in the hospital did you have to wait for ice while your nursing staff was coding the patient down the hall?  Or are you a shill for corporate hospitals that feels like the frontline staff does not matter? It would seem the latter since one of her major donors is the Washington State Hospital Association.  Might also be telling of what Washington state thinks of their nurses.

What experience do you have, except being on the maternity advisory board for St Mary’s hospital (and what does that entail?).  What kind of bullshit situation allows you to just spew crap like that out of your pie hole without any sort of experience?  Certainly not your AA in Commercial Arts or your experience as the owner/operator of the Onion World restaurant?  All this information is available at Maureen Walsh on Votesmart

Let’s not even start on the countless hours and years that I have spent studying and honing my craft. The financial commitment to my career that you seem to not give a tinker’s damn about.  It appears that you have no clue and because you get elected to a state Senate its ok to spew crap out of your mouth (your party has a great example in the White House).

Stay out of our lane Senator.  If you are not going to support all nurses, go find other work.  I know that the rural voters eat your kind spew up.  The rest of us out here, in reality, think you are the worst type of person and need to have your head examined.

If this sounds ranty and pissed off, well it is.  I have had folks say well nurses are finally getting what cops, firefighters, EMS, etc. have been dealing with for years. True, you have.  You won’t hear it out of my mouth.  I worked in EMS and I get it.  I also think that creating a competition here is not the answer, even if it is good natured ribbing. We all take abuse for a job that we wouldn’t do if we didn’t like the work.