I learned something very disturbing today at Healthcare United. Did you know that one in four health care workers is NOT registered to vote?!
There are over 10 million health care workers in the U.S. Twenty five percent of them are not registered to vote. That’s 2.5 million potential votes!!!
The shortage of nurses and physicians is not going to be fully addressed until we elect a President and a Congress that understands the health care crisis and is willing to DO something to fix it.
Ten million health care workers united towards a goal of providing the very best health care possible is a force to be reckoned with, but we need every single person to REGISTER and to VOTE! We won’t all agree on one political party or one particular candidate, but we must put forth a united front to stand up for our industry and our patients and demand that those we do elect work towards fixing this broken system.
I know that one of the reasons people don’t register to vote is that the jury system pulls names from the voter registration lists. But most states use the DMV lists as well, so unless you aren’t a licensed driver either, that’s a really lame excuse to not register and vote! Jury duty is your civic duty, but let’s talk about that another time…
Help get the word out at your facilities this year and make sure your co-workers register and VOTE!
One Comment
Zed
Hi
I believe that the ANA-PAC had a campagne years ago to encourage donations. Then they gave you a button that said(greatidea) “Registered Nurse, Registered Voter”.
I believe that it used to be the lame excuse about not wanting to be calle for jury duty,(they don’t like nurses or healthcare workers on juries because we are smarter than the average bear)but now I believe that it is apthay because people do not believe their vote will really count after all the hoopla in Florida, etc.
You are right about the sats of unregistered healthcare workers. We need to guide our nursing students toward becoming legislators, lobbists and congressmen in order to have a real voice. Nursing is not just at the bedside or left in the alley ways of the community’s needist anymore. We need to make some hard decisions not only about healtcare, but the future of the nursing profession. If we do not stop talking issues to death, do CPR on it and bring it back to life only to talk it death again and decide to make decisions as hard as they will be then someone will make them for us and we will continue to be hand-maidens and labor instead of the professsionals that we are.
Laura La Cagnina
RN, BSN, MSN
Atlanta, Ga