We must use the weapons of power that business uses if healthcare has become a “business.” The deeper issues are the ethics of business for nurses who have promised and continue to want to fight for patients without destroying their own lives. No nurse saves a patient who can’t first stand for herself. It’s like “put your own oxygen mask on first.” We must, as distasteful as it seems and as hard as it is, allow something greater to save our patients for the time we need to take a stance for both their rights and our own. Moral distress and burnout with wipe us out if we don’t. And then we will become numb and unable to “care” for them when they most need us. Support other nurses…that way we all become stronger.
We must use the weapons of power that business uses if healthcare has become a “business.” The deeper issues are the ethics of business for nurses who have promised and continue to want to fight for patients without destroying their own lives. No nurse saves a patient who can’t first stand for herself. It’s like “put your own oxygen mask on first.” We must, as distasteful as it seems and as hard as it is, allow something greater to save our patients for the time we need to take a stance for both their rights and our own. Moral distress and burnout with wipe us out if we don’t. And then we will become numb and unable to “care” for them when they most need us. Support other nurses…that way we all become stronger.