[brian]

This forum was created by the request of users like you on this BB.

Here is the thread that spurred this forum:
Nursing Activism/ Healthcare Politics

Please feel free to start up New Topics to discuss! Enjoy!

[-jt]

Hi Brian

Thanks
I didnt see this on the list of categories of all nursing topics because I am so used to going right to the general discussion link. But when I went back after reading your reply about making this category, I saw it at the bottom of the list. Would it be possible to move its link up to the top on the category page to increase exposure & let people become aware of it more easily?

[StaceRacer1]

THANKS BRIAN!!!!
KEEP up the GREAT WORk!!
THIS site, if used by ALLNURSES, like the site is called could really make a difference for our profession!!!
This new FORUM will be good to keep every body up to date for what is happening around the USA!!

[NRSKarenRN]

Thanks Brian!
You support for nurses has been tremendous. It is the easite nursing bb around to navagate. Nursing news very helpful to collect articles re worldwide shortage ofnurses when gathering stats for my nursing rally May 5th,2001 and getting ideass what's happening legislatively around the country.

[cargal]

Thank You , Brian , for establishing this forum. When I went to nursing school in the mid nineties, we were told that nurses, for some reason, were not politically active in their profession. Many nurses here at allnurses.com have proven this to be the opposite. I recently contacted my state senator to express my concerns on the nursing shortage and how it would relate to unsafe care for the burgeoning elderly population, and found that he has an RN on his staff working on the issue. I talked to them at great length about why the shortage exists. I may never had taken the initiative if not for the perserverence of some great, well spoken nurses on this site. This site may be instrumental in changing the face of nursing as we know it. Keep up the great work, and I am so proud of you nurses in Minnesota.
Carrie

[carina nielsen]

Great forum. Nurses definitively need to be more politically active for the sake of the profession and health care. Although Canadian laws and health care are run differently than the US...We have huge problems up here as well. I never was politically active /interest, but I see now that if I want my career to develop in the right direction, I must expand my knowledge to include laws and politics. Health care policies should be developed by health care professionals, but they are not...and that has led to many of the problems we are experiencing. Canada is facing a nusing shortage as well. Possibly due to retention... the working condition make it impossible for us to do our jobs well, leading to fustration and leaving either the country and/or the profession. To have our profession recognized as more that just task doers, we need to start articulating what it is nurses do exactly. The tasks we preform are only a small part of what we do. These other nursing role need to be quantified to be recognized. I have been a nurse for 10 years and have just recently gone back to school to get my BSN. Hopefully this will help give me some tools to help educated the puplic and politicians how indespensable nurses are to quality health care... I hope that this forum will help inspire us all to find the activist with in us and collaborate our efforts. We need all the voices we can get.
Power to us all.

[rncountry]

THANK YOU BRIAN! Since I already use this site to help me keep up with nursing issues and activism, this will certainly enhance what role each of us will be able to play in getting what our profession needs. Networking can work wonders! I have already found some tremendous nurses on this board, and done networking through it. I truly believe that it is through nurses that changes in the healthcare field will come, and this area I think will help a great deal. I tell all my nursing friends and coworkers about allnurses and the ease the one can negogiate though it. BIG KUDOS TO YOU!

[-jt]

"I recently contacted my state senator to express my concerns on the nursing shortage and how it would relate to unsafe care for the burgeoning elderly population, and found that he has an RN on his staff working on the issue. I talked to them at great length about why the shortage exists. I may never had taken the initiative if not for the perserverence of some great, well spoken nurses on this site."


ANOTHER RN ON THE MOVE TO EFFECT CHANGE!
Thats great!! Congratulations!
I was so glad to see this post. If we had anything to do with just one RN getting active to make her voice heard instead of just complaining, it makes all the bashing of our heads against the wall with so many other nurses worthwhile.

I once visited my state assemblymans office on my state association's RN Lobby Day at my state Capitol but he wasnt there. In his office, I left my card & an informative packet from our state associations legislative agenda explaining the laws RNs needed to solve the nursing crisis anyway. Although I never got the chance to speak with him, this lead to me being invited 2 months later to a round-table legislative forum in my community which he headed to discuss the nursing shotrage & find solutions to it. The only other people invited to this forum were hospital administrators, VNS administrators and one Nurse educator. I was the only bedside RN invited to discuss solutions for the shortage of bedside nurses in my community! Can you imagine that??? I brought 2 other bedside nurses with me & he got a ton of info he never would have heard. We dominated the discussion but where would the direct-care nurses voice have been if I hadnt taken 2 minutes to stop by his office that day at the Capitol?

At the end of the forum, he released a statement to the press that he vows to support our legislation to improve working conditions, our legislation designed to retain experienced nurses, & our legislation to provide funding for new students & expansion of nursing programs & recruitment efforts.... all of which were in the packet I had left in his office for his review.

And, The House which he is assistant minority leader of recently passed the whistle blower bill protection bill my state association wrote.

I expect you will be hearing from your legislator again!

[Jenny P]

Thanks, Brian, for this new area. Now we need to get more people to visit this site and realize that they can make a difference in nursing (both in their workplace and in nursings' future) by being politically involved. We all need to contact our legislators and talk to them about what is happening in health care from our veiwpoints. Unless we are willing to take just a few minutes of our own time to talk with them, they will only hear the administrations' side of what is happening at the bedside. And we know what that story is, don't we?

[ingelein]

I would love to see the thread that prompted this new forum, but only get the ALLnurses start page, link not working. Plus I cant find the new forum, where is it?