When I was in nursing school (with Florence) my very wonderful nursing faculty made a point of saying that, “If you are sick or feel like you are not going to be render adequate care to your patients you need to call off.” Which sounds great, hey I am not feeling right, call off?  Yeah that works until the first time you have to do it and the house supervisor literally tells you to come in anyway and wear a mask.  Yeah this really happened.  I was dumb and didn’t enforce the boundaries and went in anyway.  After vomiting partially in my mask and then in the trash can at the nurses’ station, not once but twice, I was graciously allowed to go home (oh thank your highness for making me drag my ass out of bed).

Enter another occasion and PTSD was flaring (yeah folks Nursie poo has PTSD) and while I wasn’t incapable of care, I was very scattered that day.  It took a lot to stay focused.  I didn’t call in because I am not physically ill and because of years of conditioning by house supervisors and their push back.  No mistakes were made but it ended with me being written up because some poor resident’s feelings were hurt when I wasn’t able to magically produce a discharge disposition he wanted ( I worked in case management at the time).

Both situations were completely avoidable if, I had called out and stayed home. Why didn’t I? The obvious reason is the desire to avoid confrontation and conditioning about calling in had worked its magic on me.  How many of you have had this same thing thrown at you?  Even better how do you like the idea of that person caring for you or your loved ones? I’ll wait. I am quite sure it didn’t take that long.

So here is a challenge to the ANA and other nursing organizations.  Let’s take our legislative and our work with hospital corporations towards improving working conditions also.  I know getting all those statues and recognition for nurses past has some importance but let’s really push for a change for the current nurses.  I don’t get action updates at all on this kind of thing, and it is really time for our profession to say, “We’ve had enough.”

Hospitals already have sick people in there, why demand that any provider show up when they are sick?  That little mask ain’t really helping its more like a sign of shame and it does nothing except give them a body. We don’t need “bodies” at work, we need on par staff.  We don’t get that by forcing staff to come in when they are not at their mental best. Med errors increase, organization decreases, residents get butthurt, etc.

These nursing organizations need to push for better behavior from hospitals first and foremost. Quality of care should always be ahead of bottom line.  I have worked short staffed many a day and would rather do that, than get sick because they make fucking Karen come into work because one of her unvaccinated brood is sick. We have staffing, we are just too afraid to cut into someone’s bottom line.  Trust me the top CEOs of hospitals as well we many of the top tier of managers make embarrassingly high salaries.  These hospitals can afford this, trust me.  The level of profit in healthcare is as anywhere else, and yet people who devote up to and past 10 years of their lives to work in healthcare are discarded in the interest of pocket lining.  I get it, we need to make money to continue and you might as well run us like slave labor.  Oh make no mistake, I do get compensated ok in the money department. I do not get compensated, nor does anyone in the hospital really (yep all the way down to the janitors) , with basic human dignity.  Respect when I am sick or not at a high functioning percent and have staff that is available that is not a last-minute call in of a person who is already exhausted themselves.

Also, when I get staff perks, it shouldn’t be a free mug during nurses’ week (which breaks a week later), it should be tangible.  I would give back every mug and free t-shirt if administrations would stop paying just lip service to their staff. So ANA, AANP, etc. Its on you to push for this, not just for days of remembrance, and crap like that (it is important, it could also be done as well as this).  Please fight for better boundaries. Also to my physician friends, maybe you should tell your medical associations to stop treating nurses and NP’s like your fucking servants.