Nurses on the Line: Care, Conflict and the Cost of Walking Out

Today the nurse strike found me, text messages asking me if I want to go to NY. Waving an insane amount of money per week across my eyes definitely got my attention. It’s moments like this that bring up a lot of emotion. Patients in hospitals needing care and nurses strike leaving them even more vulnerable than what brought them into the hospital. Followed by additional feelings that bring up our worth, our oath, our compassion and empathy. Intersected with anger and frustration at the system. 

Patient safety and concern should be at the forefront of healthcare. The reality is, it is NOT. Patients are viewed as income to a hospital. Now before we get our feelings out of whack here, let me be clear, there ARE nurses, doctors and healthcare practitioners that DO care, however I am talking about the system here. Hospitals employ healthcare workers, hospitals are a business. 

Patient safety has been compromised for years and continues to be a frontline problem. Adding to safety concerns beyond patients are the increasing and disturbing incidents of violence and abuse toward healthcare workers. 26 years ago when I stepped into healthcare, never did the thought cross my mind that my life would be on the line, very much like the police. Knowing what I know now, would I make the same decision and choose nursing as a career? 

The part of me that wants to go, to help patients, met with being paid what we are worth. All the years of being underpaid, under-appreciated and wanting to take that money in representation of nursing as a profession ….  we deserve this!  Any if anyone wants to argue this, I dare you to do chest compressions for hours, hold someone's hand as they take their last breaths, clean up vomit or diarrhea over and over, code an overdose/attempted suicide, put someone in a body bag and escort them to the morgue, clean 3rd degree burns from a teenager, hug a mother as she bleeds out losing her unborn baby, work a STEMI as the gentleman holds his grandchild's picture in his hospital gown begging me to not let him die. More stories than can fit in this blog, many of which deserve their own space. The liability, responsibility and mental and emotional toll this takes on us over a career is undeniable and really quite un-measureble, nurse suicide speaks for it. Spend a day in a nursing home, mental hospital, a jail and an ER and then maybe we can talk or maybe just hug each other. 

Hospitals are a business, insurance is a business and pharmaceuticals are a business. Hospitals never close, they care for patients 24/7/365. They cannot stay open without nurses. The nurses have decided to strike. Honestly I don’t blame them. New York is a nurse union state. The unions have been protecting the nursing profession and they’ve been supporting nurses since 1901. With a professional union, contracts are in place that require (re)negotiation, implementation and adherence. The start/end dates of the contracts are known well in advance, so avoidance by the hospitals to address the new upcoming contracts, that do not honor the negotiations needed prior to contract end, is somewhat of a slap in the face. The hospitals know nurses care and will continue to go to work to serve the patients they took an oath for. Its manipulation, taking advantage of and abuse toward nurses delivered by hospitals. Its absolute disrespect. Why is strike money also a slap in the face to the staff nurses? Because hospitals will pay agencies to pay strike nurses A LOT of money to staff their halls. That money could just go to the staff nurses in raises and retention. But ego and greed has a huge cost and who will that cost fall upon, down the road? You! One of the many factors in rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums rising. 

When I graduated nursing school I thought I was going to make a decent living, at least enough to support my young child at the time. I learned quickly that nurses in the “south” make marginally less than other parts of the country. Exploring options to increase my pay to provide the life my child deserved, had me moving up north fast, yes to New York. 26 years later, 19 of those years as a travel nurse, has given me the opportunity to provide for both my children. Even still, a ton of sacrifices had to be made that still haunt me to this day. 

Today as a Nurse Solopreneur and away from the hospital for the last year, the biggest sacrifice I made unconsciously was the health of my nervous system. It wasn’t until I stepped away from the bedside/hospital setting, for my own mental health, that I was awakened to just how much trauma I’ve endured in 25+ years and healthcare PTSD is real. What it would take to restore my health … physical, mental/emotional and relational, would be no small feat. A few years later, additional education, rest, major lifestyle changes, renewal and I founded my holistic wellness practice, a result of what true health transformation looks like. I reversed my Lupus and despite gaining numbers on my age, I am the healthiest, happiest and calmest I have ever been in my life.

So if you made it this far in my post, what does any of this have to do with a strike in NY, when I live in NC? Everything. As much as I’ve pondered the benjamins today, something very clear came to me. What amount of money is worth my nervous system being exposed and possibly finding itself dysregulated once again? I haven’t actually sat down and added up the cost of what it has taken me to bring my nervous system back into balance but if I had to guesstimate.. at least $80k. The years it has taken, the amount of help I had to seek, and most importantly, the energy, strength and courage it has taken ME to do the work, to step down from chronic fight or flight and allow my body to find its way back to homeostasis.

Homeostasis is “balance” in the body. The body strives and works toward homeostasis, every second of your entire life, its how we stay alive. Our lifestyles work against that so much of the time. So when you find yourself feeling sick, emotionally and physically, it's because your body is out of balance. Physical symptoms are a late sign, your body has been trying to get your attention for years, but you haven’t listened. So just like the nurses needing to strike to be heard, by the time you find yourself in a doctor's office or hospital, your body is screaming for help. 

I hope you listen, before you find yourself as a patient, with no nurse to care for you in the hospital.

Ready to listen to your body? Reach out, I am here to support you.

Hope