Nurse Erica EXPOSES Healthcare Worker Rights | Unions, Strikes & Ending Workplace Violence

Getting hit, threatened, or harassed shouldn’t be a rite of passage in healthcare, yet too many nurses are told to accept violence as “part of the job.” Nurse Erica joins us to draw a clear line: this is a workplace safety crisis, and nurses have more rights and options than most people realize. We dig into what the data says about how often violence happens, why it’s under-reported, and why filing a police report still matters as documentation and accountability, even when prosecution feels uncertain. 

We also get practical about what hospitals should be doing right now to prevent harm, from real entry screening and staffed metal detectors to capable security, panic buttons, locked units when appropriate, and zero-tolerance policies that are enforced instead of framed on a wall. Nurse Erica explains how OSHA expectations apply to healthcare workplaces and why “we’ve always handled it this way” is not a defense when staff safety is on the line. 

Then we zoom out to nursing culture and power: unions, retaliation fears, and the protections many nurses don’t know they have, including Weingarten Rights when a meeting could lead to discipline. We tackle strikes and the controversy around strike contracts, why they can create patient safety risks, and how strikes function as a bargaining tool. Finally, we talk about just culture and the chilling effect of criminally prosecuting nurses after errors, using the RaDonda Vaught case to unpack how system failures and individual accountability collide. 

To learn more about the legislation, visit: https://nurseerica.com/pages/legislation
To purchase "Violence against healthcare workers" merchandise, visit Nurse Erica's etsy store here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheNurseErica

If you care about nurse safety, patient safety, union rights, OSHA protections, safe staffing ratios, and healthcare workplace violence prevention, this one is for you. Subscribe, share this with a nurse you love, and leave a review with the change you want to see most in your workplace.

To submit your stories & comments, visit: https://simplenursing.com/podcast/

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:02

We gotta go round. Welcome to Bedpan Banter. With Nurse Mike. Welcome to Bedpan Banter, the official podcast of Simple Nursing, where we explore the human side of healthcare. With me today is a very special guest. We are joined by an experienced registered nurse as well as a patch and advocate, Nurse Erica.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hello, thank you for having me. It's good to see you again.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

I haven't seen her since NurseCon. Like, man. It's been oh no, we did like a podcast con.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

In our con. That was Austin. So today's episode is all about nursing culture, safety, and empowerment at work. We're covering topics every nurse and student should know, like the epidemic of workplace violence, um, why nurses talk about unionizing, um, what just culture really means, and the reality of retaliation and prosecution, as well as how nurses can protect themselves and their patients. I think this is a really big Yeah, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

That's a lot.

Violence Is Not Part Of Nursing

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Something you're very passionate about is uh violence uh that faces nurses on the job. Um many nurses think violence is just a part of the job, but is that actually true?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

It's not true, and that's a dangerous rhetoric that we need to stop. We have to get that out of our narrative. It's archaic and it actually causes more harm because then we accept it, you know, and we put up with it, right? The fact is that nurses are five times as likely to get assaulted than any other profession. Wow. Five times as likely. Think about the airline industry, right? If you threaten, even threaten to assault a flight attendant, federal crime, you face up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 fine, and a lifelong no-fly ban. No, really, you assault a nurse, the nurse gets blamed. What could you have done differently? It's allowed to happen to nurses because this narrative has been perpetuated that it's it's just part of the job. Right. They didn't know it was the patient. They're not in their right mind. It's just part of the job. It's so dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

I'm trying to think about like uh my my dad was a police officer for 30 years. And I'm like, man, if you assault a police officer, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Any other profession.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Any other profession, there are severe consequences. But nurses, nope. It's allowed, it's permitted.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

So um, what does the data say about how often this happens?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

We actually have recent surveys that show that over 80% of nurses report having at least one violent incident in the past year. And of those, only 21% of the employers did anything to change anything after the incident.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Only 21%? Oh my gosh. And and are these unionized hospitals or both. Both. Oh wow. So I mean, honestly, uh being a nurse previously in the ER, we see a lot of things. I was actually a nurse in the psych ER as well, which was crazy as well. But I mean, it's shocking for uh the general public uh seeing it as you know okay to assault a nurse rather than other professions.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

But the fact is, it is your right to report any and all assaults or threats of assaults, right? And we're gaslit all the time as nurses. You can't report it, or it's futile. If you do report it, they're not gonna prosecute. So nurses vastly under-report these things, and it's so, so important. You know, we can't control if a DA is gonna prosecute a case, but we can still file those police reports, and that's important. It's documentation, it shows that it happened, it can protect you if anything comes of it down the line, and it's a tracking mechanism, so we can hold facilities accountable.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

What should employers do about the situation?

Reporting Assaults And OSHA Rights

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Is there any yeah?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

What they should do is have uh metal detectors at every entrance, not just in the ED, right? They need to be manned 24-7. So there has to be someone at the metal detector. We need armed security that are physically capable of intervening.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Right, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Because I mean, we all know 80-year-old Barney Fife that's so true. He can't help, you know, bless his heart, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

We have a lot of Walmart reader uh security guards that I've met.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

We need um panic buttons, locked units when it's appropriate. We need a zero tolerance policy. So don't just put that picture up on the wall so the admin can feel good, like they're doing something, saying we don't tolerate violence. Actually implement that. So if someone is threatening nurses or staff, they they get escorted out. They don't get to come back. And if it's a patient, we look at discharge.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah.

unknown 4:45

You know?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Or like, you know, I mean, working in the psyche are is like every single time like someone raised their voice or verbally said they were gonna do something, you know, it was always held all in geodon, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Where it's like, all right, you're gonna go net night, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, but a lot of nurses don't realize that employers are obligated to provide safe working conditions because again, we think it's part of the job.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Where it's like, oh yeah, get swept in the rug, everyone gets taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, it's federal law. They're required by OSHA. It's un yes. What?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

It's so funny you're saying this because I've been a nurse for like over a decade. I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Exactly. No one knows this. The OSHA Act of 1970, it's still current federal law, and it's under the general duty clause. They are required to proactively identify and abate any kind of workplace threats, any dangers that could occur. They're mandated to proactively do something to mitigate it. And then if they don't, you can report them to OSHA. And there's fines that go along with it. But nurses don't know this.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, I mean, um, I know they do like this, like what one or two day, like actually actually it wasn't even one, maybe one or two hour like self-defense training. Yeah. And but speaking of self-defense, is there any appropriate way to defend yourself as a nurse, or do you have legal rights?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

They will tell you that you can't. You know, you just you're supposed to lay there, let them do whatever, beat the crap out. Because as soon as a nurse gets involved, then the nurse is the one that is held accountable. The nurse is terminated. No, then yes, because we assaulted a patient, right? Oh my god. All I can say is if if it was me, I'm fighting back.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, self-defense, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I am absolutely fighting back, regardless.

What Employers Must Do Now

SPEAKER_01 6:29

All right, so let's move into the topic of unions.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Okay, well, first I have to give you something. Oh, because I brought I brought you a little bit. Because it goes along with violence against health workers. So I co-created a uh awareness ribbon for violence against healthcare workers with my good friend Matthew.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Wow, this is so cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, the red and black ribbon. So I brought you a t-shirt and there's one of the enamel pins in there and a bumper sticker.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

All right. Is it a medium? I'm gonna wear this at the gym. It's gonna be uh I think so. I think it's a large one. No, no, no. I'm just gonna juggle because you'll have to gun. No. Yeah. No, this is really cool. Stop workplace violence against healthcare.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, it's an opportunity when people see it to ask so we can educate about the epidemic of violence against healthcare. Oh wow. Workers, yeah. And we can, you know, draw the line in the sand and let employers know if we wear the pin or the badge reel to work and say, like, we're not gonna tolerate this. This is not okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

You've been a huge advocate for this, like for ever since.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah, very passionate about this.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

How long have you been?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Forever. Forever and ever. You know, I think a turning point, this is when I actually co-created this campaign, was after the Methodist Dallas incident. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I heard about it, but refreshment memory.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

2022, uh, a man named Nestor Hernandez, who's on parole, uh, home, home arrest, he's got the ankle bracelet and ankle monitor, and he was allowed to go visit his girlfriend in the hospital because she was having his baby. So for three days, he's acting erratic. He's making threats, he's high, he's coming in and out. They observe him screaming at his girlfriend, getting physical with her. Everyone knew. All of the nurses reported it. Admin knew, they expressed their concern. They did nothing.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

And on the third day, he brought in guns.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

And he shot and killed an RN, Annette Flowers, and a social worker, Jackie Pakua, in the labor and delivery unit. Oh my god. Shot them dead. For three days, they knew he was a threat, and they did nothing. And that's really what spurred me to start this movement because that is unacceptable.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

That's that's insane.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Any any other industry, literally even a restaurant. Yes, call the authorities.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, you know, you'd be 86 right away. But three days he was allowed to continue to threaten, act erratic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

That's insane. There needs to be heavy action. Yeah. What implies or what um ramifications or any any change that has happened at that particular hospital?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Or actually, as a result of that, that was in Texas. They they did uh put through legislation that now makes it a felony.

unknown 9:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, to assault a healthcare worker.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Well, finally, finally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

There's not too many states that have that. There are a couple of pending bills out there that every healthcare worker should be pressuring their representatives to support. The work, it's called the Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act. It's it's a mouthful, and then the Save Healthcare Workers Act. Those are really important.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, well, first off, that's really, really sad. And um, I thank you so much for doing what you're doing. And um, I'm definitely gonna wear this with pride.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

There you go. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

I'm gonna we're gonna get serious about this workplace. All right, so speaking of making change, let's talk about unions here.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

My favorite subject.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yes, I know. One

Union Fears And Retaliation

SPEAKER_01 10:08

of them, yes, one of them. A lot of nurses are part of unions uh to address safety and better working conditions. Um, and many are afraid to even bring it up because a lot of hospitals suppress unions. Um, when nurses talk about unionizing, what fears do you hear most often?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Retaliation. They're afraid of even saying the you word, right? They think they're gonna be terminated, retaliated against, because unfortunately that happens. We have all heard of situations where that happens, but it's not legal and employers get away with it because nobody reports it. But yeah, they're worried about you know, not getting the shifts that they need or um their PTO approved or being micromanaged, scrutinized by employers or terminated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, that's that's that's like probably the biggest form of bullying right there.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

It absolutely is. I think a lot of it comes from lack of education. Nurses don't know their rights, they don't know that that's illegal, that you can report that. And they just kind of suffer in silence, you know, they're afraid to get involved with the union. I think they don't even understand sometimes what a union is exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah, we we uh we interviewed um two nurses from a union yesterday. Um, and it was very enlightening. I was like, wow. What what would you say for anyone watching this, um, maybe a new grad or maybe a seasoned nurse, uh about unions themselves, like if there was like one or two things that how it best supports nurses.

Weingarten Rights And Real Protection

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Oh, so my favorite thing is something called wine garden rights.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Wine garden rights.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

It's a it's a funny name, but basically this means that if you are being questioned by your manager, by anyone, if it's anything that could even lead to disciplinary action, you as a union member have the right to say, stop, I'm not comfortable with this. I need my union representative here. And they legally have to stop and give you like 24, 48 hours to contact your union rep and schedule a time so that you can't be in there alone. There's a witness, there's someone taking notes, there's someone that knows your rights that's gonna stand up for you. Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

And that that could be for any issue.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, anything disciplinary related.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, that's amazing because I still remember um I was almost gonna get written up. And and this was actually when I was a tech at uh big hospital, huge hospital um in Orange County. Um, they're attached to a children's hospital. No, but I now this was what was it, uh 2011. This is a while ago. I know, it was so far ago. I was I wasn't even a nurse yet, and I still remember being in the manager's office and I was working night shift, and like, oh, we're gonna write you up because of A, B, and C. And I'm looking at the write-up and I'm like, this is a pip. I'm like, okay, but I'm like, this wasn't even my shift. And like, they're like, what are you talking about? Because they said I had a no-call, no show, but I'm like, no, like literally the days were off. I got those days off. This person, like, you look at the schedule. Like, no, you're gonna sign it right now because and you know, I'm like, no, I'm not signing it. And so we went back and forth. I'm like, I'm gonna need I need to talk to uh one of our union reps, and like, okay, so then just let me go.

unknown 13:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

So yeah, that's your wine garden.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

That was the only time I ever used that. I'm like, wow. Yeah, and this whole time I'm like, man, unions are a waste of money because I'm as a tech, you know, I I didn't know anything about anything. Yeah, I just remember just painting money. I'm like, whoa, I felt the power.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

And that's that's the first time I was really introduced to the power of unions.

Strike Contracts And Patient Safety Risks

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, I mean, the thing is that there's only two ways to hold healthcare facilities organizations accountable. One is through law and one is through a union contract. That's it. Wow. So if you want to be able to force them to do or not do something, you either gotta get your representatives to pass the legislation or get a union.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

And I mean, union's like probably the lowest hanging fruit because legislation could take a long time. Now, I hear the biggest forms of action is a strike. And we hear about it in the news, we hear about on social media, it's very controversial. Yeah. Um, when nurses strike uh for safer staffing or better working conditions, hospitals sometimes bring in replacement nurses or short-term strike contractors. Um, and these contracts are often advertised as very high pay and short durations, it becomes a hot button in nursing culture. Um, so can you explain what a strike contract actually is?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, well, first let's call it what it is. It's a scab contract, and and that's a controversial term, but it is divisive and derogatory by design. It serves a purpose, right? It's got a long history in every industry of using that term. So it's important that we actually use that term, even though they they don't like it, but you know, that's okay. So here's the problem with accepting these scab contracts, these strike contracts. They don't know the facility, they get little to no training, they're thrown in there. The agencies that supply them either don't have the time or aren't bothering to do all the necessary background checks. So you can say, yeah, I've got 10 years of ICU experience. Meanwhile, you've never been in an ICU. We see this all the time. And we know statistically that death and serious complications increase by up to 20% when cared for by scab nurses during a strike.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So it's absolutely a patient safety issue. But here, here's the bigger overarching issue. I mean, right off the top, it's morally reprehensible, right? Like ethically, this, you know, it's a reflection of your character. Is are we asking too much to expect you to not cross a picket line? Are we really asking that? Could you take any other job? God knows there's plenty of nursing jobs, any other job other than that strike? Because as soon as a hospital facility knows that they have scab nurses confirmed, all bets are off. That's where we lose all of our power. Everything that we're fighting for immediately goes out the window. Because here's the thing that people don't understand. If they participate in CMS, that means so they bill for Medicare, Medicaid, which is basically everyone, okay? If they are accredited, like through joint commission, right? They are required, they are federally mandated to have RNs in there.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

If they don't, they risk losing their accreditation and they cannot bill for services. Now you know no hospital is gonna risk that, right? So that means if there were no scab nurses, the hospital would be forced to negotiate with the nurses to avoid the strike in the first place. They would have no other choice. They're not gonna risk not being able to bill Medicaid, Medicare, right? But as soon as they know they have scab nurses confirmed, they have they have no motivation to negotiate anymore. They have strike insurance, it pays for them. It's no skin off their back. They have no motivation, and the strike moves forward.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

How does that usually end? Because I mean, scab nurses are they get paid a substantial amount, um, but it that can't last forever. And some might see it as a financial opportunity, but that can't last forever, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

It's as far as their strike insurance?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, I mean, like uh how long is a typical strike?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Well, you can have a one-day strike, three-day, five-day, or unlimited, open-ended strike, typically. So, you know, as far as their uh strike insurance, it differs. It's like your auto policy, your homeowners, it's very much uh individualized, place to place. So some of them have a cap, like a dollar amount. They're only covered up to $2 million, whatever it is. Some have a frequency cap, so they're only covered for two occurrences a year, which is why you will often see a lot of hospitals doing a lot of short-term strikes instead of an open-ended, they'll do five one-day strikes per year because they know that that's going to exceed the cap that the hospital's strike insurance covers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Do you see strikes um actually getting to the administration and making change, real change?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, it's our number one bargaining chip. Our number one bargaining chip. You know, it's when the public becomes aware they get bad publicity. They hate that, right? They we get their attention when we go on strike. It forces their hand.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, so it sounds like being a strike nurse or a scab nurse is a moral and ethical decision, even though it sounds like a great financial opportunity for, you know, a nurse that may be new, that has no clue, uh, or maybe outside the realm of union. But um, and I mean that this isn't telling what nurses what to do, it's just really all about the big, bigger picture and the educational side.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, let's not trade your short-term financial gain for long-term detrimental consequences. Patient, you're risking patient safety, the future of patient safety, and you're selling out your entire profession.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

And you're working against your own best interest, right? We're fighting for the same things that you want and need in your workplace. And when you put things in in place in one area, it carries over, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, and I mean, if you think about it too, as like a the the nurse family as well. Um, you know, we're stepping on each other's toes or also like that just so disrespectful. You're you're literally um causing like the blockage that you're trying to make change for, which is wild. So we talked about before how patients can get prosecuted um legally, but now we're seeing that nurses can be charged criminally for medical errors or just simple mistakes. Um, like who was the um uh Redonda Vaught? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yeah, yeah. It's a it's a scary time to be a nurse, you know, because historically what would happen if you had, say, a med error or some kind of you know, event incident at work involving patient harm, is that you might be reported to the Board of Nursing if it was serious enough, and you might get sued civilly. Okay, so that just means like monetarily, okay. Now we live in a world where nurses are being criminally prosecuted since the Redonda Vaught case, and I don't know if you want me to kind of tell people about that. So Redonda Vott was an ICU nurse at Vanderbilt Hospital, and uh one day she was a help-all nurse, so she had no patient assignment of her own. And she was asked to go down to

How Strikes Force Real Change

SPEAKER_00 20:58

PET scan and give another nurse's patient a dose of Verset to calm them down. Well, none of these systems were interfacing,

Criminal Prosecution And The Vaught Case

SPEAKER_00 21:08

were communicating in Vanderbilt for a couple of months. They were upgrading their system. Oh no. So Epic wasn't talking to the Pixis, wasn't talking to pharmacy, to the EMR, nothing was communicating. And so as a result, they had to override almost all of the medications for like two months. This was going on. Wow, hospital was aware, did nothing about it. So she had to override. So she put in VE for versed, which was her mistake. She should have searched for midazolam, the generic, okay? It auto-populated vecuronium, which is a paralytic. And she pulled the paralytic. She was also uh training a student or a new hire at that time. Yeah, it was like the perfect storm. Very good. She goes down to radiology, she asks for a scanner to scan the men, the patient, and she's told we don't we don't have those anywhere down here in the entire department. Perfect storm. So she gives what she thinks is first said. The patient later codes and ultimately ends up passing away. Long, long, long course of events take place. But in the end, there was a district attorney in Nashville that was wanting to make a name for himself. He was running for re-election. And he thought, that's the case. That's the one. And so he criminally charged her. And she went on trial. I attended her trial every day of it and her sentencing. And she was found guilty ultimately. She was acquitted of the highest charge, which was uh reckless homicide. Thank goodness. Because that would have absolutely sent her to prison.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

But she was found guilty of the lesser charge of negligent homicide and neglect of an impaired person, I believe. And so she was, by the grace of God, not sent to prison. And because nurses around the world spoke out, I'm sure that played a part. But she was uh given probation for three years. And so I wish I could say that that was an isolated incident and we don't have to worry about it. But unfortunately, that started a cascade of criminal prosecution of nurses. And so much so I have a playlist on my TikTok. There's so many cases, it's a daily occurrence. So that plays into just culture. Okay. Just culture for anyone that doesn't know means that you should have a safe environment to report errors or near misses, right? So if there's an error and you report it, they look at it as a systems error instead of an individual failure of a nurse because there's a system in place that allowed for that to happen. So we need to address it. But now in the wake of the Redon Devot case, nurses are not reporting errors and near misses. Because why would you?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Why would you?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, because it's like I work so hard for this license and all these things. And then if I do make a mistake, reporting it's not going to fix this mistake. And honestly, I think it's unfair that the hospital themselves are not the ones going to prison or having this criminal charge on them. Especially when the systems failed, the pixel weren't working. Yeah. All these things. Then you have a scanner inside, you know. No, we see that's uh same thing done with blood, right? You have to have two nurses to verify or insulin um and other certain medications.

Just Culture And Why Reporting Stops

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And they verify in the lab as well, but no one's keeping accountable or holding accountable the administrators and like you know the facility.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Never, just the nurse.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

And what whatever happened in the wake of that with uh the roundabout? Did the facility get all these fines or no, nothing?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

They walked away scot-free.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah. That's what we're saying. You know, for for all the new grads out there, you now have a license to maintain.

unknown 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

And you know, it's it's almost like uh, what is it, like having a lifeboat like the Titanic, or um having uh no car insurance? Everything's fine until you know you get in trouble. Yeah. Or you need it.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

And we're taught in nursing school report it so they can fix it, report the near-miss, you know, but who's gonna report it now? Right. Who? Because we're gonna be terminated, reported to the board of nursing, probably lose our license, sued civilly, so maybe lose our house because every nurse needs liability insurance side note. But now we're gonna be criminally prosecuted. Who's gonna report those things? No one. So patient safety suffers. We never know now that these errors and near misses are taking place. That's why just culture is so important.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So we we talked about legislation as well as unions to make a difference and how nurses can get involved. Are there any other uh ways that our listeners or viewers can get involved?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, you know, make appointments, go meet with your representatives. Most states have a nurses' day at the Capitol, something like that, but you don't need to wait for that. You can literally make an appointment and go meet with your legislator. You can email them, you can at them on social media. They all have social media accounts. So you can send them snail mail, you can call, but keep doing it every week. Get in there, tell them your stories as a nurse, you know, break it down, put it in simple terms that they're gonna understand. Tell them how important it is to pass the legislation that is gonna support nurses and patients. There's four key pieces of legislation, in my opinion, that every nurse should be pressuring the representatives to pass. Two are the workplace violence ones that I mentioned earlier. And then there's the uh safe staffing standards for hospital patient safety, I believe is the name of it, another mouthful, which would create

Legislation Nurses Can Push For

SPEAKER_00 26:55

federally mandated nurse-to-patient ratios similar to California.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Federally, yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah, and that is so important. We need that.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I mean that's basic, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, and the PRO Act. Those are the four pieces of legislation that we need to get passed. So make appointments, go and lobby, get together, join professional organizations, and stay on top of the news that comes out surrounding the legislation. Get involved.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So, I mean, for our viewers and listeners and nursing students or new grads, it can seem very scary, uh, especially when you're just navigating it all alone. You guys are doing a new career, or if you're unfamiliar with unions or how to protect yourself, but there is a community. And Eric has spearheaded this community.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I don't know about that, but I'm passionate about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

But I love what you like, you're at the forefront. Yeah, and I don't think you give yourself enough credit. That's amazing. Yes. So we're gonna leave your links below so that um you can learn more about the legislation as well as the shirts and how to make an impact. Um, where can our viewers and listeners find you?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

At the Nurse Erica on basically every platform: YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and my podcast, Nurses Uncorked.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Nurses Uncorked and at the Nurse Erica.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yes, Erica with a C.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Okay, I was gonna say Erica with a C. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And guys, thank you so much for watching and listening. Make sure to like, share, subscribe, and follow. And as always, remember don't let the bedpan bite.

unknown 28:21

Woo!