Pat Taub
With COVID-19 propelling nurses into the headlines, I wanted to understand what it means to be a nurse. I contacted the National Nurses Union, who put me in touch with two Maine nurses, Cokie Giles, 64, and her daughter Jessie Lambert, 38. Last week we talked via Zoom. As members of the union, Cokie and Jessie are protected from being fired for speaking out.
Here are highlights from our conversation:
What is the most important quality for a nurse?
JESSIE: Compassion. When you’re sick you’re not your best self, but the nurse has to try and understand what the patient is going through.
Jessie Lambert, RN
COKIE: Since nursing carries tremendous pressure, it can be difficult to keep compassion central.
On the public image of nurses:
JESSIE: My hospitalized patients often say, ‘I never understood before what nurses do.’ It takes being sick or having a sick hospitalized loved one to appreciate the job of a nurse.”
COKIE: It’s the nurses and not the doctors who take care of patients around the clock.
Cokie Giles, RN
What is the most challenging aspect of nursing?
JESSIE: Presently we have a huge infection control issue where we have to fight for safety equipment. In the beginning (of COVID) we were assured we’d have N95 masks. Overnight the CDC changed the rules, due to limited supplies and not science. They told us, ‘You don’t really need N95 masks, just surgical masks.’
It’s very demoralizing when you have to time out from caring for very sick people just to fight for a mask. It makes me feel expendable.
COKIE: Often we are told to wear used masks. While they have been sterilized, they’re often not safe because the chemicals used are questionable.
JESSIE: The lack of transparency means we have to live with uncertainty. CDC regulations change to conserve supplies with the result that we don’t know what we have.
What are they doing to get more masks?
Courtesy of the National Nurses Union Facebook Page
Why do you think our health care system is failing us?
COKIE: The decline started in the ’80s and ‘90s when Silicon Valley got involved, putting profits over people. The message to nurses has become, ‘Do more with less and hurry up.’ In the ‘70’s when I started nursing, health care was very different. If you had a hip replacement, you’d stay in the hospital until you could go home safely. Now you go home the same day or the next day.
JESSIE: When hospitals operate as a business, it’s expensive to keep stockpiles of PPE, therefore it hasn’t happened.
What basic change would you like to see in our health care system?
COKIE and JESSIE: Medicare for all.
What do you find rewarding about being a nurse?
COKIE: When I worked with uninsured or underinsured patients who needed a colonoscopy, if someone was found to have cancer, and I called them back, they cried and thanked me. Later when they called back to be re-checked, I had to tell them the program had ended.
JESSIE: I like hearing patient’s stories because part of the healing process is to be together with the patient. When patients’ families can’t visit, the nurse is the human contact someone wouldn’t have otherwise.
Why is it important to both of you to speak out about nursing conditions?
JESSIE: Often other nurses will say to me, ‘Why do you have to be political?’ I believe that nursing is inherently political. We don’t just care for the patient in front of us. We care for the community at large.
COKIE: A lot of nurses don’t understand the importance of political involvement. That’s how you get change. The California nurses union lobbied for 6 to 8 years to get the nurse-patient ratio down to 5 patients per nurse. Currently in some Southern states the number is 12 patients per nurse.
Jessie and Cokie, 2016, on the bus to Philadelphia’s Convention Center where they were Bernie delegates. The cheerful guy in front is their union rep.
Please don’t call us heroes. This draws attention away from the fact that there are things that can be done to protect us. We’re not soldiers. We’re not in this job to die for you.
—Jessie Lambert
If you’d like to support nurses, check out these links:
Demand AHA end retaliation against nurses speaking out on PPE and infection control concerns: https://act.medicare4all.org/signup/aha-stop-threatening-nurses/
Demand Congress protect nurses:
https://act.medicare4all.org/signup/covid-19-protect
Demand Trump use the Defense Protection Act for PPE:
https://act.medicare4all.org/signup/dpa-for-ppe
