I was musing today, Labor Day that in 1974 I was among 4,000 nurses that went on strike for 3 weeks in northern california against Kaiser and other bay area hospitals. We went on strike for patient care issues among them, to require that ICU"s and CCU require that nurses have certification to work in intensive care units including CPR Certificates and ability to read EKG monitor .
Today, there is discussion regarding how bad unions are , and why we need public employee unions, service worker unions, police and fire unions and teacher unions.
I pose this question to the public: do you want to go back to l969 when I cared for 48 patients at a Veterans Hospital on night shift ? I was the only nurse, I was not CPR certified and I did not know how to read an EKG for my 48 cardiac patients. I did know how to use the defibrillator paddles in case a patient coded and I used them more than once on night shift.
