Happy Nurses Week! We’re marking this time by celebrating Nurse Power! Throughout the week, we’re highlighting a few moments in our history that show what happens when nurses organize, act collectively and bring about social change. 

Look for social media posts on National Nurses United Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/nationalnurses – about how nurses helped improve public health and worker safety, fought for women’s rights, stood up to racial discrimination and gained collective bargaining rights. 

Some examples:

1863 – Susie King Taylor served as the first Black Army nurse in the Civil War with the all Black army troop, First South Carolina Volunteers. Like many African American nurses, she was never paid for her work. 

1893 – Nurses Lillian Wald and Mary Brewster created the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Henry Street Settlement to serve thousands of immigrants living in tenements in the Lower East Side of NYC.  These programs, which continue to thrive, formed the roots of Public Health Nursing. 

1902 – The nurse–led Henry Street Settlement in New York City created one of the first public playgrounds for children and started a national movement so that children living in crowded tenements could have a clean and safe place to play. 

1908 – National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was founded to represent the professional interests of Black nurses and combat widespread racial discrimination in nursing.

1912-1913 – Lavinia Dock, nursing education pioneer and women’s rights activist, took part in suffrage hikes to help promote women’s right to vote. 

1945 – California nurses won the first collective bargaining agreement by RNs in the country. RNs won 15 percent raise in pay to $200 a month, OT pay, on-call pay, shift differentials, health benefits, paid holidays, vacations and sick leave.

1966 – Mass resignation of 1,979 nurses from 33 California hospitals, resulting in 40 percent increase in pay – $700 a month. 

1999 – After hard grassroots effort by nurses, California became the first state to pass a law requiring a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio in hospitals.

2008 – RNs at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston vote to join CNA – becoming the first nurses in a private-sector hospital in Texas to win union collective bargaining rights.

2014 – After speaking out and holding massive demonstrations, nurses win mandatory Ebola guidelines, which set a new benchmark for strong infection control protections for other epidemics.

Today, National Nurses United RNs are carrying on the proud tradition of helping improve the health and lives of our patients, our families and our communities by advocating for social reform  — Medicare for all, environmental justice, labor rights, Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street, free higher education and a national network that sends RNs to disaster-stricken areas (RNRN). 

Thank you for all you do, nurses!  Be sure to look for the #NursesWeek hashtag. 

“You can’t run if you can’t afford to leave,” says a middle-aged man with long, graying dreads. He’s standing in the driveway of his home in Richmond, California.   “But I do think they’re trying to get rid of us, either by making us move, or by—”

His unfinished sentence hangs in the air, as he fills out a community health survey on the impact of the coal trains that are running through his neighborhood, their uncovered cars spewing toxic dust into the air.

Where is the dust coming from? Big corporations in Utah and Colorado use the rail lines to transport coal to East Bay Area shipping ports, where it can be exported to other countries as fuel. 

While moving toxic fuels means profit for corporate interests, local residents may be paying the price with their health. In addition to the trains, they also live adjacent to the Chevron refinery, which has been repeatedly cited for environmental violations. That’s why RNs from the California Nurses Association have partnered with the Sierra Club on a Monday evening, to canvas Richmond’s Parchester Village. They’re surveying residents of the predominantly African American/Latino neighborhood for information on any health impact they may have experienced as a result of environmental toxins.

“Uncovered coal trains come in 125-car trains, twice a week, and they are polluting our community.  That’s why we are doing this community health survey,” says Ratha Lai, Sierra Club Conservation Coordinator and Richmond resident. “Through this, we are going to build some concrete, raw data that our elected official partners can take and advocate at the state level.”

On this night, three CNA registered nurses have joined in the canvassing: Mary Roth, a Kaiser Vallejo advice nurse and 29-year Richmond resident; Johanna Lavorando, a Kaiser Richmond Medical/Surgical nurse and former Richmond resident of 8 years; and Maria Sahagun, a 10-year Richmond resident and former registered nurse at the recently closed Doctors Medical Center (DMC).

“I came out here tonight because healthcare and environmental discussion go hand in hand,” says Sahagun, who wonders how residents will be treated for the symptoms they may experience as a result of the toxic trains, when the closure of DMC left a hole in access to healthcare. “West County is surrounded by these coal trains and a toxin-emitting corporation, and you removed the hospital? It’s a blatant act of discrimination.”

DMC closed on April 21, and now the more than 40,000 people—many of them low-income Medicare and Medi-Cal patients—who used the DMC emergency room each year are without close proximity to a hospital. Yet, as Sahagun points out, these residents are now experiencing a dearth in care, while living both in Chevron’s backyard and adjacent to coal trains.

“Poor communities have to suffer such an assault on their health because of the way heavy industries are placed near them. And when we don’t even have a healthcare system to help them deal with that stuff, it’s really disturbing,” agrees Roth, who explains that nurses wind up treating patients for asthma, heart disease and other illnesses that can be triggered by environmental toxins.

“I think it’s important, from a public health point of view, for nurses to participate in community events,” Lavorando adds. “With these coal trains, it’s critical that we gather as much information as we can, and give it to officials who can try to change regulations.

”

Lavorando explains that at one stop during the evening’s canvassing, a young father shared a lengthy list of symptoms, including vision and breathing problems. Yet, he hadn’t been sure whether or not pollutants could be a factor.

“He said the doctor checked him out and told him he was okay, but he was telling us, ‘I know I’m not okay,’ because his chest was hurting and his throat was closing up,” Lavorando says. “And his story wound up being the same story that a neighbor shared.  So again, that’s why it’s important as nurses to take part in these events and gather this information—to get people thinking about what kind of symptoms can be triggered by the environment.”

At the end of the evening, Lai gathers the anonymous surveys to bring back to Sierra Club’s offices, where they will be compiled with data gathered on future canvassing events, to eventually turn over to local and state representatives. Will the data herald change? For the RNs and the Sierra Club, a healthier community and a cleaner environment is worth the work of standing up to corporate interests.

“I’m glad someone cares. We tend to disappear,” says the man filling out the form in his driveway. “I think you guys have a big fight. But it’s good someone is ready to fight.”

“You can’t run if you can’t afford to leave,” says a middle-aged man with long, graying dreads. He’s standing in the driveway of his home in Richmond, California. “But I do think they’re trying to get rid of us, either by making us move, or by—”

His unfinished sentence hangs in the air, as he fills out a community health survey on the impact of the coal trains that are running through his neighborhood, their uncovered cars spewing toxic dust into the air.

Where is the dust coming from? Big corporations in Utah and Colorado use the rail lines to transport coal to East Bay Area shipping ports, where it can be exported to other countries as fuel. 

While moving toxic fuels means profit for corporate interests, local residents may be paying the price with their health. In addition to the trains, they also live adjacent to the Chevron refinery, which has been repeatedly cited for environmental violations. That’s why RNs from the California Nurses Association have partnered with the Sierra Club on a Monday evening, to canvas Richmond’s Parchester Village. They’re surveying residents of the predominantly African American/Latino neighborhood for information on any health impact they may have experienced as a result of environmental toxins.

“Uncovered coal trains come in 125-car trains, twice a week, and they are polluting our community.  That’s why we are doing this community health survey,” says Ratha Lai, Sierra Club Conservation Coordinator and Richmond resident. “Through this, we are going to build some concrete, raw data that our elected official partners can take and advocate at the state level.”

On this night, three CNA registered nurses have joined in the canvassing: Mary Roth, a Kaiser Vallejo advice nurse and 29-year Richmond resident; Johanna Lavorando, a Kaiser Richmond Medical/Surgical nurse and former Richmond resident of 8 years; and Maria Sahagun, a 10-year Richmond resident and former registered nurse at the recently closed Doctors Medical Center (DMC).

“I came out here tonight because healthcare and environmental discussion go hand in hand,” says Sahagun, who wonders how residents will be treated for the symptoms they may experience as a result of the toxic trains, when the closure of DMC left a hole in access to healthcare. “West County is surrounded by these coal trains and a toxin-emitting corporation, and you removed the hospital? It’s a blatant act of discrimination.”

DMC closed on April 21, and now the more than 40,000 people—many of them low-income Medicare and Medi-Cal patients—who used the DMC emergency room each year are without close proximity to a hospital. Yet, as Sahagun points out, these residents are now experiencing a dearth in care, while living both in Chevron’s backyard and adjacent to coal trains.

“Poor communities have to suffer such an assault on their health because of the way heavy industries are placed near them. And when we don’t even have a healthcare system to help them deal with that stuff, it’s really disturbing,” agrees Roth, who explains that nurses wind up treating patients for asthma, heart disease and other illnesses that can be triggered by environmental toxins.

“I think it’s important, from a public health point of view, for nurses to participate in community events,” Lavorando adds. “With these coal trains, it’s critical that we gather as much information as we can, and give it to officials who can try to change regulations.

”

Lavorando explains that at one stop during the evening’s canvassing, a young father shared a lengthy list of symptoms, including vision and breathing problems. Yet, he hadn’t been sure whether or not pollutants could be a factor.

“He said the doctor checked him out and told him he was okay, but he was telling us, ‘I know I’m not okay,’ because his chest was hurting and his throat was closing up,” Lavorando says. “And his story wound up being the same story that a neighbor shared.  So again, that’s why it’s important as nurses to take part in these events and gather this information—to get people thinking about what kind of symptoms can be triggered by the environment.”

At the end of the evening, Lai gathers the anonymous surveys to bring back to Sierra Club’s offices, where they will be compiled with data gathered on future canvassing events, to eventually turn over to local and state representatives. Will the data herald change? For the RNs and the Sierra Club, a healthier community and a cleaner environment is worth the work of standing up to corporate interests.

“I’m glad someone cares. We tend to disappear,” says the man filling out the form in his driveway. “I think you guys have a big fight. But it’s good someone is ready to fight.”