By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC
Today is the Nurse’s March on Washington. Tomorrow nurses will gather in Nashville to protest the sentencing of RaDonda Vaught. While these are two separate events, they are both being driven by the anger, negativity, and emotion nurses are feeling after two sustained years of battling the COVID pandemic. While some seasoned leaders may dismiss these protests as being organized and sponsored to spur union membership, there is so much more that lies below the surface of what is happening this week.
Today’s nursing workforce has growing numbers of Millennial and Generation Z nurses. In a few short years, these two generational groups will be 3/4 of the workforce. Nurses in these two cohorts place a high value on their mental health and wellbeing. Many are exhausted and burned out, and report low levels of well-being. They are working in environments that are now chronically understaffed. These frontline nurses see little optimism that there will be any change in the near future. Unlike previous generations of nurses, they are not afraid to air the dirty laundry and take their cases directly to the American Public. They are also far more willing to openly talk about fair wages. According to a recent Bankrate survey, nearly 42% of Gen Z workers (ages 18-25) and 40% of millennials (ages 26-41) have shared their salary information with a coworker, compared to 31% of Gen Xers and 19% of baby boomers.
They know and so should we that the future of healthcare depends on a thriving workforce. Both events appear to be well organized using social media as a major channel of communication. Over 200,000 nurses are in a Facebook group dedicated to the march. An even larger Facebook group is discussing planned actions around the RaDonda Vaught conviction and sentencing. Leaders of these efforts are issuing press releases and many media outlets have promised to provide coverage. Nursing will likely be on the front pages of every newspaper in the US through the weekend.
Ironically, this is what we have always said is needed in nursing – nurses to advocate for themselves. And this week, they will be doing it albeit to the embarrassment of some leaders in health delivery systems. There are four key issues that will be part of the March 12th event:
• Fair realistic wages; including no caps
• Safe staffing (nurse to patient) ratios
• No violence against healthcare workers
• Change the culture of the biases and discrimination in the nursing profession
This is not the first time that nurses have marched in Washington DC. What makes this time different is that we are in the middle of an unprecedented nursing shortage AND (a big and) we have younger nurses who are clearly willing to vote with their feet and leave the profession if nothing changes. They already are as evidenced by the new study released in Health Affairs in April which indicates a drop in the nursing workforce under the age of 35.
We will all be watching these events as they unfold. Nurses are watching. Nursing students and their parents are watching. Consumers of healthcare are watching. As they watch the most trusted professionals march on Washington, they are likely to think – if these nurses are worried enough to come out in these numbers then something is definitely not okay in our healthcare delivery system.
© emergingrnleader.com 2022
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