Global Nurses United was created in 2013 to address the issues all nurses around the world dedicated to social justice have in common. Members of GNU work to protect their patients on many fronts, from bedside care to the environment. GNU was born from the idea that we are one planet, one people, dedicated to caring for each other.

Nurses fought long and hard for nurse to patient ratios because nurses care for their patients. Listen as RNs who were directly involved in the struggle for ratios talk about the fight, and the excitement of winning one of the landmark patient gains in the country…and the ONLY patient ratios law in the United States.

Governor Gray Davis signed ratios into law in California in 1999. They were finally implemented in 2004 after a long fight to win safe staffing and quality patient care. Nurses even took on Gov. Schwarzenegger and won. Their story of persistence in the face of adversity is one of the great political tales of our time.

Find out more about CNA/NNOC/NNU’s National Campaign for Safe RN-to-Patient Staffing Ratios.

Chicago RN Rolanda Watson wants the pollution to stop.  

Earlier this month, she spoke out at the Climate March rally against petroleum coke piles that are poisoning residents and polluting her city’s South Side – all while corporations profit.

“As nurses, we work very hard to keep our communities healthy! We make sure mothers deliver healthy babies, and work to guarantee that those children are able to grow up healthy and whole.  But, the wrong-headed policy of this government undoes everything we do.  So, this is why I am here today, demanding something is done NOW!” she told the crowd of more than 300 gathered at Daley Plaza.

Chicago is one stop on the 3,000-mile Great Climate March across the country. It started in Los Angeles in March and is one of the biggest coast-to-coast marches in history.

National Nurses United RNs know firsthand how attacks on our environment threaten public health. That’s one reason why NNU members from across the country are speaking out for environmental justice and joining the Sept. 21 climate march in New York City.

In Chicago, Naomi Davis, the founder and director of Blacks in Green (BIG), an African-American environmental group, emceed the rally, which included Watson and a number of other speakers

The next day, the climate marchers walked through the South Side of Chicago to bring awareness of the fight nurses, residents and fellow activists are raging against the poisonous pet coke storage.  Watson’s clinic was once evacuated after a six-story high pet coke pile blew a huge dust cloud over the area.

In May, nurses held a protest to demand city officials declare an immediate moratorium on pet coke to protect city residents.

The marchers left sidewalk chalk messages in front of Alderman John Pope’s office. Next, they headed to the KCBX Terminal Co. gates where huge exposed pet coke piles are stored on the company’s property along the Calumet River. While holding a “die-in” at KCBX, an unauthorized train approached. The marchers took over the tracks, preventing the train from passing for about an hour.

Afterwards, the marchers proceeded to a neighborhood church, where they were hosted for the night. The group spoke with neighborhood activists and leaders about the work they’re doing to educate people about the dangers of pet coke and why it must be banned.

Amid the media accounts of the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded some significant context is largely missing from the major media reporting.

Atop this list are links of the outbreak to the climate crisis and global inequality, mal-distribution of wealth, and austerity-driven cuts in public services that have greatly contributed to the rapid spread of Ebola.

Equally underreported is the inadequate disaster planning for U.S. health services and how poorly prepared U.S. hospitals are for epidemics like Ebola, other epidemics, and even natural disasters as a result of misplaced priorities in a profit-driven health care system and short sighted public health budget cuts.

Start with severely skewed, neo-liberal programs in a global economy dominated by international banks and the governments aligned with them that have starved health programs and other public services while shifting resources to transnational corporations and other wealthy interests.

Thus we have health systems in the global south teetering on the edge of collapse, unable to effectively respond to disease outbreaks, much less daily health crises, and international relief agencies begging for funds.

Even the World Health Organization, the United Nations agency who has as a prime purpose to “direct international health efforts, tackle epidemics and help in emergencies, (has been) badly weakened by budget cuts in recent years,” the New York Times reported September 3.

The WHO, the Times noted has been hobbled in its ability to respond, and its “outbreak and emergency response units have been slashed” with a drain in the staff needed to help blunt Ebola and similar epidemics.

A Robin Hood Tax on the Banks Would Help

One way to reverse this trend would be further enactment of the Robin Hood tax to levy a transaction fee on the trading of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial instruments from the very banks and institutions that have so cratered the global economy. The proposed U.S. version is HR 1579.

Hundreds of billions of dollars would be raised by wider enactment of the Robin Hood tax, funds that could be used directly to attack under funding of health programs and poverty that contribute to the outbreaks and their rapid spread.

Robin Hood funds would also help mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, which also has links to Ebola. Drought conditions have accelerated deforestation and reduced animal habitats that have brought humans into closer contact with infected fruit bats and monkeys, and crop loss that results in more reliance on eating infected meat.

In 2008, Scientific American listed 12 major diseases likely to see upticks due to the climate crisis, including cholera, bird flu, lyme disease, yellow fever, malaria-related ailments, sleeping sickness, poisonous algal blooms, tuberculosis, plague and Ebola.

A dearth of Protective Gear for Embattled Health Workers

Inadequate funding of health resources is another major reason for the deadly shortfall of protective gear for nurses, doctors and other health workers.

Of the more than 2,000 who have already died in West Africa, about 10 percent are health workers, an “unprecedented” infection rate, says the WHO. “Health workers on the frontline are becoming infected and are dying in shocking numbers,” noted Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders.

Many staff do not even have access to gloves and masks, much less full protective equipment, such as hazmat-style protective suits. Even in dedicated Ebola wards, protective gear is often scarce.

One nurse at a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, said she and her colleagues have resorted to cutting up their old uniforms or overalls and tying them on their heads. They cut holes in the fabric, so they can see.

Much of the gear must be destroyed after use, so wards need a constant flow of equipment. Doctors and nurses are overwhelmed by a surge of patients and there aren’t enough hazard suits to keep them safe. Health care workers can go through thousands of the suits a week.

To protest the lack of protective equipment while risking their lives, nurses and other health workers have gone on strike in Liberia and Sierra Leone, two of the hardest hit countries.

Working directly with groups on the ground, primarily the International Medical Corps, National Nurses United, through our Registered Nurse Response Network is requesting donations to provide protective equipment for nurses. Here’s how you can help:

Are We Prepared in the U.S.? No.

NNU is also warning of a dangerous lack of disaster planning and emergency preparedness in the U.S. The lack of preparation here illustrates the value we place on caring in a country that has no universal health care model and societal protection and has made profit the prime directive in healthcare.

Silence equals death was the legacy of years of neglect of the AIDS pandemic. Apparently the lesson has still not been learned.

Ebola scares have already occurred in several U.S. locales with the fears of the presence of patients who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus. While tests for those have so far proved negative, the screen has been pulled back on a disaster in waiting.

In a Sacramento, Ca. Kaiser Permanente hospital the patient who prompted the alarm there reportedly sat in the emergency room for at least a half hour without being screened or isolated.

Kaiser nurses say lack of patient screening is just one small example of a widespread failure to have in place disaster plans or training of RNs or other staff on how to handle emergencies – not just for Ebola but for other disease outbreaks, such as SARS, or natural disasters like earthquakes.

Our Interconnected World

“Like it or not we live in an interconnected world,” was how Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden aptly put it. Ebola is “not just a problem for West Africa, it’s a problem for the world, and the world needs to respond.”

An “interconnected world” where all of us are drawn together by global economics, political decisions, health and environmental crises, social structures, culture, and travel.

An “interconnected world” because factors that have spurred the spread of Ebola, the climate crisis, deforestation, cuts in public health services, poverty, and mal-distribution of wealth affect us all.

An “interconnected world” because U.S. hospitals and our fractured healthcare system are not equipped to handle an outbreak of Ebola here, or other pandemics that are sure to come.

Disasters are made not just in rural West African villages, but also in government and corporate offices, with decisions to slash public services, funding for health programs, or putting private profit over public protection

Emergency preparedness includes not cutting vital services at the behest of bankers and deficit-obsessed politicians that put millions at risk, or economic programs that leave much of the world population in poverty with few resources when disaster strikes.

Nurses joined union activists throughout California for Labor Day activities on Monday.  They celebrated with parades and held rallies to honor working people.

The RNs, who offered first aid at several events, shared information on the fight for Medicare for all and how we need to go beyond the Affordable Care Act to recognize that healthcare is a human right.  RNs talked about the Campaign for a Healthy California and showed support for Proposition 45, an initiative that could save patients billions by requiring health insurance companies justify rate increases and get state approval to enact them.

Early last November Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda slammed into the Philippines, leaving more than 6,000 people dead, tens of thousands injured, and many more bereft of their homes and livelihoods. The storm was called the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to make landfall.

Few of the international media who flew in to report on the devastation noted an underlying cause: subsurface ocean waters recorded at 9 degrees Fahrenheit above average, fueling the intensity of the storm.

But National Nurses United, which rapidly dispatched a number of nurse volunteers, who provided basic, hands-on medical support for thousands of the injured, never lost sight of a broader concern.

Taking a break one day from the medical mission, RN volunteers joined a press conference with local healthcare and environmental activists, noting that huge storms are not new but are far worse because of the consequences of the human-made climate crisis.

“Climate change and global warming has brought this misfortune to the Philippines. This affects us globally, from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the United States to typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines,” said RN volunteer Jane Sandoval at the press conference.

Given those experiences and what nurses see at home, NNU members join the climate march in New York Sept. 21 because they see the effects of the climate crisis and experience it in their communities and, most importantly, with their patients.

For registered nurses the climate crisis is a clear and present public-health emergency as well as a creeping bomb for our planet — and they draw a direct link between extreme forms of energy extraction and the horrific impacts they see on human health.

NNU members, for example, have been on the front lines, speaking out and protesting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, working to stop the expansion of polluting refineries in Los Angeles and Richmond, California, and standing with community members to rid Southside Chicago of petcoke piles.

Opposing Keystone, NNU members have joined multiple public protests and sponsored a march across the Golden Gate Bridge and a national press conference with Sen. Barbara Boxer in Washington to highlight the harmful effects of the extraction, transport and refining of crude tar-sands oil.

At the press conference in March, Brenda Prewitt, an RN in Houston, cited existing serious problems with pollution in that city and noted that the last thing area residents need is the arrival of dangerous tar-sands oil, which has been linked to reduced lung function, aggravation of cardiac systems and other ills, she said.

Standing near the latest in a series of oil spills in Los Angeles weeks later, RN Sandy Mulcahey said, “Our patients don’t have to just be in a hospital. They’re here in the community. It’s our duty to take preventive measures to make sure our environment is safe.”

Participating in a refinery protest in Richmond, California, RN DeAnn McEwen said, “As nurses we are particularly concerned about the disproportionate effects of toxic pollutants on the health of our community’s most vulnerable members.” She continued:

Children and infants are at greater risk due to their still-developing lungs and respiratory systems. The elderly and people with preexisting respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer all face greater risks than the general public. Low-income and working families, because they are more likely to live near heavily traveled roadways and industrial districts, also suffer more. When coupled with the fact that these families also are less likely to have adequate healthcare coverage, this creates a real crisis in our community.

Joining Chicago protests in May against toxic dust wafting off petcoke piles near homes and children’s playgrounds, RN Rolanda Watson noted:

The first thing they taught us as nurse practitioners is that we are advocates. We’ve been seeing a rise in respiratory illnesses — so many colds, sinus problems, bronchitis, COPD, pneumonias. People will say it’s the weather or something is just going around. But babies aren’t supposed to have asthma. There’s a reason for all this.

Turning to embattled residents still suffering from the effects of Haiyan and an oil spill that it aggravated last winter, RN Ashley Forsberg concluded, “We want you to know that we and our union are so proud to stand with you today in solidarity to advocate for the political and social changes necessary to fight against that threat together.”

This coming week critical votes may be taken in the California legislature and your voice and calls are needed to make sure the outcome benefits patients and the people who care for them, YOU, the Registered Nurses.

We are asking you to make two calls to your representatives by this Monday, August 18th. Remember, their staffs are there to hear what you have to say and are used to getting calls from the people from their districts. Each call will take less than a minute!

• Call your State Senator: Tell her/him:  I am a California registered nurse. Please support AB 2533, the Patient Choice Act, so that my patients can go to the doctor or hospital for the medical care they need without facing financial ruin if they go outside their restrictive insurance network. 

• Call your Assemblymember:  Tell her/him: I am a California registered nurse. I urge you to oppose SB455 because it would undermine hard-won gains in RN staffing (“nurse-to-patient ratios” ) and would be an enormous step backward. Please keep patients safe by voting no on this bill. Don’t weaken our nurse-to-patient ratios by allowing this bill to go through!

 
Note: We are directing calls to Democrats only because in the case of these two bills they are the votes that will make the difference. See below for simple instructions:

Use this tool to find out who your Senator and Assemblymember are, and to determine if they are Democrats.
 
If they are Democrats you’ll find their phone numbers below:

CA State Senators:

Jim Beall  (916) 651-4015

Marty Block  (916) 651-4039

Ellen M. Corbett  (916) 651-4010

Lou Correa  (916) 651-4034

Kevin de León  (916) 651-4022

Mark DeSaulnier  (916) 651-4007

Noreen Evans  (916) 651-4002

Cathleen Galgiani  (916) 651-4005

Loni Hancock  (916) 651-4009

Ed Hernandez  (916) 651-4024

Jerry Hill  (916) 651-4013

Ben Hueso  (916) 651-4040

Hannah-Beth Jackson  (916) 651-4019

Ricardo Lara  (916) 651-4033

Mark Leno  (916) 651-4011

Ted W. Lieu  (916) 651-4028

Carol Liu  (916) 651-4025

Holly Mitchell  (916) 651-4026

Bill Monning  (916) 651-4017

Alex Padilla  (916) 651-4020

Fran Pavley  (916) 651-4027

Richard D. Roth  (916) 651-4031

Darrell Steinberg  (916) 651-4006

Norma J. Torres  (916) 651-4032

Lois Wolk  (916) 651-4003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CA State Assemblymembers:

Luis A. Alejo  (916) 319-2030

Tom Ammiano  (916) 319-2017

Toni G. Atkins  (916) 319-2078

Richard Bloom  (916) 319-2050

Raul Bocanegra  (916) 319-2039

Susan Bonilla  (916) 319-2014

Rob Bonta  (916) 319-2018

Steven Bradford  (916) 319-2062

Cheryl R. Brown  (916) 319-2047

Joan Buchanan  (916) 319-2016

Ian C. Calderon  (916) 319-2057

Nora Campos  (916) 319-2027

Ed Chau  (916) 319-2049

Wesley Chesbro  (916) 319-2002

Ken Cooley  (916) 319-2008

Matthew Dababneh  (916) 319-2045

Tom Daly  (916) 319-2069

Roger Dickinson  (916) 319-2007

Susan Talamantes Eggman  (916) 319-2013

Paul Fong  (916) 319-2028

Steve Fox  (916) 319-2036

Jim Frazier  (916) 319-2011

Cristina Garcia  (916) 319-2058

Mike Gatto  (916) 319-2043

Jimmy Gomez  (916) 319-2051

Lorena Gonzalez  (916) 319-2080

Richard S. Gordon  (916) 319-2024

Adam Gray  (916) 319-2021

Isadore Hall  III (916) 319-2064

Roger Hernández  (916) 319-2048

Chris R. Holden  (916) 319-2041

Reginald B. Jones-Sawyer  Sr. (916) 319-2059

Marc Levine  (916) 319-2010

Bonnie Lowenthal  (916) 319-2070

Jose Medina  (916) 319-2061

Kevin Mullin  (916) 319-2022

Al Muratsuchi  (916) 319-2066

Adrin Nazarian  (916) 319-2046

Richard Pan  (916) 319-2009

Henry T. Perea  (916) 319-2031

John A. Pérez  (916) 319-2053

V. Manuel Pérez  (916) 319-2056

Bill Quirk  (916) 319-2020

Sharon Quirk-Silva  (916) 319-2065

Anthony Rendon  (916) 319-2063

Sebastian Ridley-Thomas  (916) 319-2054

Freddie Rodriguez  (916) 319-2052

Rudy Salas  Jr. (916) 319-2032

Nancy Skinner  (916) 319-2015

Mark Stone  (916) 319-2029

Philip Y. Ting  (916) 319-2019

Shirley N. Weber  (916) 319-2079

Bob Wieckowski  (916) 319-2025

Das Williams  (916) 319-2037

Mariko Yamada  (916) 319-2004

Your calls needed today on CNA bills to hold hospitals accountable and protect patients and nurses.
 
Critical CNA-sponsored legislation is up for critical votes this week in the Appropriations Committees in the California Senate and Assembly.
 
Your voice – and your calls – can make the difference in whether we can advance these bills.
 

Call Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Kevin DeLeon: 916-651-4022
 
Tell him, I am a California registered nurse.
 
I urge you to pass AB 503, to ensure that California non-profit hospitals are properly providing and reporting, with uniform standards, what how much charity care and community benefit services they give our patients and communities in exchange for their taxpayer funded non-profit status.
 
I am also asking you to pass AB 2533 so that my patients can go to the doctor or hospital for the medical care they need without facing financial ruin if they go outside their restrictive insurance network.
 

Call Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Mike Gatto: 916-319-2043
 
Tell him, I am a California registered nurse.

I urge you to pass SB 1299, the Healthcare Workplace Violence Prevention Act to ensure that all California hospitals have an effective plan to prevent and reduce hospital workplace violence to protect my patients, their families, hospital visitors, and everyone who works in a hospital.

San Diego RN and California Nurses Association/National Nurses United member Lisa Rainford joined with area civil rights and human rights activists July 22 in calling on Escondido, Ca. city officials to reverse a decision to block the opening of a closed nursing home as a shelter to temporarily house refugee migrant children.
 
Speaking at a press conference, Rainford emphasized the role of RNs in advocating for the rights of people around the world, especially in caring for and helping people in crisis.
 
The plight of refugee children, most of them who are fleeing from violence in Central America, has become a major flash point in the immigration debate in the U.S.

In June, the Escondido Planning Commission denied a request by Southwest Key Properties, a contractor for the U.S. government, to open a shelter at a former nursing home as a temporary 96-bed shelter for the refugee children.
 
On July 22, Rainford joined more than 100 community activists and clergy who participated in a march from to City Hall and press conference in support of the shelter that emphasized that the children should be treated with dignity and compassion not the abuse and threats of violence that has characterized so much of the debate.
 
Many of them carried signs that read “Protect the Children” and “Compassion is an American Value,” the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
 
Organizers of the march said the shelter would not only provide safe housing for the children it would also provide over 150 well-paying jobs and boost the city’s economy. Bowing to conservative, anti-immigrant residents in the area, the Planning Commission rejected the appeal.
 
In her statement to the press conference, Rainford said she was speaking on behalf of NNU and RNs who “care for the sick and vulnerable every day. We do not discriminate against people because of their skin color, their income, or because of where they were born. We believe in helping and healing people.”
 
Rainford went on to state:
 
“Nurses from our organization, through the Registered Nurse Response Network, have responded to humanitarian crises around the world. We set up relief operations in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina struck. A delegation of our nurses cared for the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquake hit. And we are helping people of the Philippines who were ravaged by typhoon Haiyan. When people are in distress, when their lives have been turned upside down, we need to help them.
 
“The people who have arrived here from Central America are no different.  Most of the children and teenagers have arrived here after being uprooted by violence and crushing poverty. They are simply trying to survive. The journey itself has left many of these children malnourished, injured, and traumatized. Many have reported being brutalized, raped, and seeing friends and family murdered. They need care, and they need compassion.
 
“Nurses and members of our organization worked in the Continuing Care Center here in Escondido when it provided care for the elderly. This facility is the prospective site of the Southwest Key shelter for unaccompanied children and we were shocked to learn that the city planning commission denied a conditional use permit for the refugee children at this site.   
 
“This facility will provide a safe and secure place for these young people to be cared for. Warnings of disease (and crime) have been fabricated to create fear among residents. There are no credible threats to the health or safety of Americans from these immigrants.  We need to stand up to fear mongering and see that these claims are simply not reality. There is no good reason to prevent them from using this site.
 
“RNs have a long and proud history as social advocates, fighting for and providing equitable healthcare for all. As Americans we must care about the plight of people in distress, especially children and young people. These people who have come here deserve humane treatment. We should treat all people with dignity and respect.”