Our Nurse Alliance leader, Michelle Boyle, an RN at Allegheny General Hospital, was the first speaker at the “get out the vote” rally with Senator Bernie Sanders at Pittsburgh’s Schenley Plaza on Sunday, Nov. 6th. We’re proud to post her speech.
I’m Michelle Boyle, and I’m a union nurse.
Under the best of conditions, in our 12 hour day at work, we deal with people who are in physical crisis and highly stressed. That’s under the best of conditions,
In our current short staffing crisis every time I go into work it’s the same: Will I be able to provide the care that I want to give? The care that my patients deserve?
And the ever present looming worst fear is always that I won’t be able to get to my patient in time and that’s a burden I will carry for the rest of my life.
Nurses and other healthcare workers are quitting because their work conditions have moved beyond stressful to traumatizing and unsafe.
Our Mayor Ed Gainey chose to listen to frontline workers, and requested a survey. In that survey 93% of healthcare workers said they think of leaving their job. 93%.
Listening to frontline healthcare workers and their solutions didn’t stop there on this September 26th Summer Lee led an intergovernmental panel of our local elected leaders, with Sarah Innamorato, Lindsey Williams and Jessica Benham, Bethany Hallam Erika Strassburg Corey O’Connor – to hear what was wrong in this short-staffing crisis and what needs to be done to fix it — they listened to us –they listened to frontline nurses and essential healthcare workers.
The testimony by nurses and workers was shocking: workers are being forced to provide healthcare within a truly broken, dangerous and greedy system that prioritizes profits over everything else.
The health industry lobbyists and their pet representatives have been writing the rules for far too long.
We pay the most in the world for healthcare to have the worst outcomes while they pick the pockets of the sick and the dying to boost their profits. ENOUGH.
We need to Vote in Healthcare Champions like Summer Lee, leaders who will work with us to solve our short-staffing crisis.
So when you are injured or in crisis there will be someone to care for you. Vote for leaders and healthcare champions who will demand accountability from the healthcare industry!
Vote for champions who will tackle the gross racial disparities within our healthcare system.
Vote for leaders who will protect patients from the greed in our profit-driven corporate healthcare industry!
Vote for your human right to be healthy and receive quality healthcare when you need it.
Voting is our power. It is our voice. When we vote. Get 3 of your friends and family to vote also. You gotta Vote, like your life and the lives you love, depend on it; it does!