Commentary: Nursing staff need our support, that of employers

By Dorothy Hall

For The Herald

Nurses and certified nursing assistants are the lifeblood of any medical center. If a medical facility fails its staff, it fails its community.

I am the daughter of an emergency room nurse. I am the mother of two children. I also was the primary caretaker for my grandmother during her last five years of life. I grew up surrounded by people in the medical profession. And from the birth of my daughters to the death of my grandmother and lots in between, I have witnessed the power and beauty of the backbreaking work, empathy and compassion of health care workers. I have also witnessed the physical and emotional toll their gift to us takes on them.

Growing up, I spent many holidays without my mother so she could be in service to others. Now, every Christmas Eve after I tuck my children into bed, I think about a dear friend of mine who instead of being home with her family, was at work with drafty air and harsh lighting. Moreover at that very moment she was likely putting her body and life on the line protecting a mentally ill patient from himself. She and those like her are doing God’s work. They give so much and get so little in return.

My mother would come home from a shift dazed and exhausted. Some days were so bad, she would find a place to hide and cry. I have a very vivid memory of finding her curled up on the floor of my closet, asleep with tear stains on her checks. She must have passed out exhausted, sad and alone carrying the weight of all she had seen and done at work. But she still kept on going.

My mother would get cussed at, spit on, pooped on, peed on, bled on, puked on and work until her body was broken all so she could help people when they are most vulnerable and when they need help the most. She served her community in this way until she could no longer physically do so.

I am also grateful for the health care workers who have helped me through preeclampsia with my first daughter, a blood pressure scare that almost required delivering my second daughter at 26-weeks; two c-sections, when my daughter’s face, neck and body swelled up red from an allergic reaction; when my daughter turned blue after seizing to the point of not being able to breathe; when my daughter swallowed a dime and would not talk; and my own personal health issues. In these cases I was vulnerable, lost or even terrified. The CNAs, nurses, and other staff were there to support us, help us, and provide necessary medical care for us, and we made it through.

When my grandmother’s dementia set in, she tanked hard. An ER trip landed her in a room with sitters after she became violent. Because of insurance issues, she ended up in limbo trapped in the constant care room in the hospital. I visited her every day and worked with the nurses and social workers to find her a long-term placement. I could write a full chapter on what I saw in that room. I actually kept a journal of it and reported what I saw to hospital officials as I did not believe that my grandmother was in a safe environment. To be clear, her lack of safety was not the fault of the staff on hand; the CNAs in that room were incredible. The problem was that there was not enough staff in a given shift to ensure the safety and dignity of the patients.

Later once my grandmother was placed at a skilled nursing facility, I would be dumbfounded and horrified by the delirious, awful, racist rants she yelled to her caregivers. Still they gave her love until the end.

The work done by CNAs and their ability to provide so much compassion in the face of so much abuse is astounding. Health care workers in general have a special combination of empathy and resilience that should be treasured.

Dehumanizing health care workers and reducing them to mere cogs in a machine is a horrifying trend nationwide. Medical facilities are understaffed, their workers are under paid, ironically their families lack medical benefits, and now institutions such as Providence Medical Center Everett are going after their sick leave! This could very well lead to a breakdown of the nation’s health care system.

When a half-percent raise is offered to counter a 12 percent cost of living increase, how are institutions like Providence going to provide an adequately staffed floor when the staff cannot afford to live within a reasonable commute to the facility? Providence and those like it are pushing their workers to either move away from the community or find a new profession. Understaffed facilities are a hazard to everyone in the facility, especially the already vulnerable patients.

Removing sick leave is just madness. How can institutions such as Providence provide a healthy healing environment without healthy workers? Facilities with overworked and sick employees are a hazard to everyone in the facility, especially the already vulnerable patients.

What can be done to restore the health and safety of health care workers and their patients?

Mergers and acquisitions turn medical facilities into a mega-medical machine that dominate a community. This makes it near-impossible for market competition to restore patients’ rights and safety. What choices do I have when it comes to health care? What of these few choices will my insurance cover? These mega medical machines also make it difficult for health care workers to fight for their rights. They cannot strike without abandoning the community and they cannot get another job in a better institution because is it all the same institution.

The community can and should demand that chief executives such as Kim Williams of Providence put the safety and dignity of patients and the people she has been entrusted to manage, over profits. Hopefully, an outcry from the community will produce some results. Meanwhile, intervention and oversight is needed internally and on a government level.

Please support our health care professionals. They are vital to our community.

Dorothy Hall lives in Seattle.