Planned Parenthood, Women's Health Issues, Nurses could rule the US

Nurses Activism

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With more than 3,000,000 nurses, yes that is 3 MILLION PLUS nurses in the US why aren't we ruling? Just think if every nurse emailed their representatives in government and told them to stop trying to block access to contraceptives, sexual education, and attempting to squash Planned Parenthood. Or donated 1, 10, or 100 dollars to the ANA PAC? Nurses votes ALONE could determine who is President. Even more important nurses can play a huge role in local politics, what are a few deciding for all at local school board meetings?

Doesn't it bother anyone else that the whole health care system was set up to benefit Drs and Hospitals, nurses were put in the bed charge because at the time when insurance companies and hospitals were developing nurses didn't matter and had no power. Why nursing care is not paid for directly (which would also make nursing the most revenue producer in a hospital rather than a revenue drain) Why chronic disease management by RN's is not reimburseable even though research shows its extremely effective. Blah blah blah, honestly after going on 27 years in nursing I feel like nothing has changed at all. Isn't it time we had a revolution?

Specializes in Med Surg.
If you want birth control, pay for it yourself. If you can't afford it, then what are you doing having sex? I'm hearing a lot of "stay out of my uterus...but first pay for my contraception". Here's a radical idea--take responsibility for your own actions, and don't go making other people pay for your voluntary medications. Just sayin.
But that means personal responsibility, which isn't a popular concept. There seems to be a disconnect in the U.S. On one hand, we're highly evolved, intelligent beings. On the other, we're mere animals who have no choice in having sex. I mean, after all, people are just magically going to get naked and have sex, they can't be expected to make a decision about that! I wonder if people who believe that sex "just happens" also advocate cheating on spouses--after all they have no control over their behavior.
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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Needshaldol: I GET it. I just don't think that people understand what the system is doing to the frail, elderly who have no one to protect them from the medical-industrial complex. Too many 90 year olds are getting big-time, barbaric procedures best left to patients who will live long enough to recuperate. Realistically however, this is the way it will work when it all gets socialized (not knocking socializing it - just observing) that the very young (not likelyl to survive fetus) and the very old will get nursing care alone - no medical intervention. That's the only way countries can afford to give anything to the healthier portion of the population. And in the end, it's the only logical way for health care to evolve. If anyone with a brain actually thought about what we're doing to people, you'd have feel that we've gone a little crazy doing anything to anybody...especially children who are never allowed to die.

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Last night I had a 102 yr old woman. Demented, bedsores, bedridden and obviously in bad shape. In my nursing diagnosis......she has "a case of the oldies". The amount of IV antibiotics I was giving her was amazing. What is wrong with this picture? What I see is that we keep people alive instead of letting nature take its course and it is not fair to the patient.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Needshaldol(and who doesn't?) Love your nursing diagnosis. I don't think that we're prolonging life, but instead, we prolong death with the futile stuff. Is that really fair - to intervene to prolong someone's death? It's not like they're in their own bed surrounded by their cats..they're instutitionalized with US. Can't imagine what it will take to turn this flaming turd back into the toilet where it belongs. I think we'd actually have to trap the doctors in the elevators to give the patients splendid nursing care.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

Back when I was a new grad just off orientation for the SICU & burn ICU I was floated to the MICU. The MICU nurse who was detailed to orient me said when I met him "welcome to the MICU, this is where we take people who are dying fast and make them die slow". I thought it was funny at the time but came to realize he was right.

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It is hard to let people go but mostly because they are not educated and seriously believe (many do) that their loved one is going to get better!! How in the world do they believe this? Because they are in denial naturally and the docs and/or end of life team are not sitting there giving the facts out. I am so wondering what will be when my time comes. My daughter is fully aware to STOP torturing me if the outcome is not a good one. My son is in Oregon so I am a bit afraid he might drag me there and have nme done in legally. I do NOT want to be like so many of the patients I care for. People need to be educated on the fact that keeping people alive when they are not really alive is mean.

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"welcome to the MICU, this is where we take people who are dying fast and make them die slow". .

Wow, that sums up a lot. I worked in Florida, so lots of elderly and sadly this is often the case. One vivid memory I have as a nurse was a shouting match on 4th of July with the oncall cardiologist (and it was a colleague cardiologist who had admitted the patient and was his attending) on addressing a do not resuscitate order and hospice consult on a guy just begging not to be on bipap and wanting to have a rootbeer. He was seriously endstage no question and had been on and off bipap and "worked on" all night. He was going to get intubated and go to MICU for his slow death or the a****le doctor who didn't want to deal with the situation, (he said he had seen him and he was fine) even with the patient and the family begging. I didn't back down and everyone knew it and could hear because it was loud, the doctor wrote the orders and left in a huge huff. In the end, after he was weaned from the bipap, he was DNR and hospice came in, he had rootbeer and his family and died the next day. I have to say one of my proudest moments as a nurse to fight for this guy and give him a rootbeer.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

PMFB-RN Awesome job.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

FWIW I have on a number of occasions refused to code a patient. I have done it as an ICU nurses in several other hospitals and in my current job as rapid response nurse (and code administrator. I just say "you guys (usually residents since I work NOCs) do what you need to do but I can not take part for ethical and moral reasons". In every case it was like throwing a bucket of cold water on a bunch of amped up residents all ready to code the heck out of some poor person. I honetly though I was going to be fired but not once has anyone from managment said a single word to me about it.

In each of these cases I had reason to know the patients wishes. Either they had told me before they were intubated, or they had made the decision to be DNR but their status was change by a family member after the patient could no longer make their wishes known. I am happy to code any patient if that is what they truely want and have made an informed decision.

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Alpha Omega, that's what I have been wondering. Where did this issue come from? We have always known that the local Catholic hospital did not endorse contraception or abortion, and the health plan did not cover it. My Catholic friends (all of whom practice some kind of artificial birth control, by the way) knew about this and found ways to circumvent it. BC pills are cheap and effective. Condoms and other methods work fairly well, and are available over the counter.

I wish we could move beyond this to the REAL health issues. Our country spends more on health care per person than most other industrialized nations, yet our outcomes are so much worse. Let's not get lost in the minutiae of an almost non-problem and focus on the big picture.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Osborncs: It's sooo much easier to rail against abortion than to solve our national health problems, i.e. obesity and lack of exercise. We need to commit to a public health campaign against obesity with the same feroicity summoned to the anti-smoking movement. There's an enormous amount of money devoted to getting "unsophisticated" people to buy absolute crap and stick it into their mouths. Its a message a lot of people don't want to hear but my own personal experience is that if you hear it over and over again, it eventually takes.

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agree Suebee regarding it is easier for people to go on and on about who is going to pay for birth control pills when they do not look at "who is going to pay for health, housing, food, etc" for this child when/if mom or mom/dad are not responsible or unable to.

As for obesity, well that is another issue in itself. I cannot blame it on junk food. I do believe that NO JUNK food allowed to be sold in schools. Being obese is all about controlling what one puts in their mouth. I do not ever recall purchasing anything that I saw advertised on t.v.

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