A Notice for the POTUS
Goodness, gracious, great balls o’ fire!
I swear I am getting teary-eyed as I type.
The beauty….
The majesty….
The cap!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the epitome of the nursing cap.
A true 10/10 on the Emergiblog Nurse Cap Rating Scale.
Oh, I know, it doesn’t have any ribbon across it and yes, that is usually a requirement for a high rating on the ENCRS.
But she wears it so perfectly, perkily perched just so, no occipital slippage to mar the nursing image.
God didn’t rest on the seventh day, he created this nursing cap. Or, if you prefer, it evolved from a starched piece of cotton!
Either way, it is a masterpiece of design and craft.
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I wonder if I will actually be able to wear my cap during Nurses’ Week this May. Last year was the accident, so I was off for the week. The year before that hubby was in the hospital so I was off for the week.
I swear I am going to wear it this year no matter where I am or what I am doing!
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To the next President of the United States,
The state of health care in this country should be high on your agenda once you are in office. Somehow, some way, we need to see that people have the means to pay for health care and that health care providers are compensated appropriately for delivering that care.
Whether our new system is based on private insurance, government oversight, universal coverage or the health plan du jour, one thing is certain.
We will need registered nurses. Lots of them. Many, many more than we have right now. Many, many more than our current system of nursing education is able to produce.
Nursing care is the primary reason for hospitalization. Nurses bring health care to the community and promote wellness. Advanced practice nurses can act as primary care providers, particularly in areas where our medical colleagues are scarce.
And we are losing them through retirement and burn out faster than we can replace them.
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Oh, there is no dearth of potential nurses in the United States. There are so many applicants that nursing students are often chosen by lottery and many wait years to get into a program.
There is not enough space in our current nursing programs, because there aren’t enough nursing educators.
This must be rectified.
- Funding for nursing education must be increased. More funding means more educators can be hired. More educators means more nurses graduating.
- Provide incentives to nurses for obtaining advanced degrees and choosing education as their focus. Loan forgiveness programs. Low interest educational loans for nurses. Grants and scholarships that are based on the willingness to educate future nurses.
We must begin producing the nursing leaders who will educate the next generation of the profession in the numbers required to provide the health care this nation needs.
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The average age of a registered nurse in this country is close to fifty. We bouncing baby boomers are aging right along with the nurses.
Who is going to take care of us in twenty years?
The answer lies in the nursing student who begins their studies today.
Let’s make sure the nursing educators are in place to produce those nurses.
