Happy Nurses Week! As we begin the annual celebration of our profession, it’s a great time to reflect on our role and power in healthcare.
Nurses Week began 72 years ago to mark the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s work in the nursing profession. Much has changed since Florence started her work and healthcare has advanced even more rapidly since this annual occasion began. I don’t know if she could have predicted that it would be nurses who would develop the crash cart, neonatal phototherapy, the Wong-Baker pain scale, color-coded IV lines, and more. These innovations, born from our bedside experience, improve patient safety, streamline care, and improve the health of our communities.
Beyond nurses’ work at the bedside, we have been on the front lines advocating for community health across the country and throughout our region. It was community health nurses who organized and led the nationwide Polio vaccination campaign in the 1950s and 1960s, eradicating the disease nationwide in 1979. It was nurses who led the campaign to understand and treat HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and advocated for access to care and lifesaving medications for all patients. This resulted in huge decreases in transition rates and an increase in life expectancy for those who contract the disease. In Minnesota, it was nurses who led the fight to pass Minnesota Care insurance for the most vulnerable of our neighbors, and it is nurses who continue to fight for universal Single Payer Healthcare for all.
Nurses continue to be on the forefront of advocating for safe nurse to patient ratios, robust clean air and water standards, workplace safety protections for ourselves and every profession, and more. In short, we lead positive change at the bedside, in board rooms, and at state capitols.
I am so proud to be a part of a profession that proactively works to improve the health of our patients and our entire communities. I look forward to all we can continue to do to advance our profession and health outcomes for all.
Happy Nurses Week!
-MNA President Chris Rubesch, RN
