Nurses Interact with President Obama at White House Meeting
By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
Eight nurses from across the country traveled to Washington, D.C., recently to attend a town hall-style meeting with President Barack Obama in the East Room of the White House.
During last week's webcast at the White House, President Obama answered questions from nurses in the audience and reassured RNs that they will be included in all health care reform discussions.
“I wish all nurses could have been there to say what is going on,” said Linda Bock, RN, a nurse for the past 34 years at Dimensions Healthcare System’s Senior Health Center in Brentwood, Maryland. “If I can be a voice for patients and my sisters and brothers in nursing, I will do that. That makes me speak up.”
Obama called on Bock during the first-ever White House webcast town hall meeting. She thanked him for listening to nurses and urged him to ensure nurses are represented on health care reform committees.
“I really hope that we can be there so we can push things like prevention and education that are so very important so that our emergency rooms aren’t used for patients’ doctor visits and that we have more community-based health centers for those that are in need,” Bock told the president.
Obama responded by telling her, the approximately 100 people attending the gathering and the online participants, “I guarantee you nurses were part of the health care summit, and they will be at the table in all these discussions. I'm biased toward nurses, I just like nurses.”
The president then related some personal experiences with the health care system and how nurses cared for his family members. He also indicated an understanding of the nursing shortage, despite the country’s high unemployment rate.
Obama said, “the reason is, is because the pay of nurses, the hours of nurses, the quality of life of nurses, the fact that nurse professors are even worse paid than the nurses themselves, so that you get these huge bottlenecks in terms of training as many nurses as we want. All these issues are part of the inefficiency of the health care system that has to be fixed. And the more we’re emphasizing primary care, preventive care, wellness—all of which will save us money in the long term—the more that we can deploy nurses as the troops on the front lines in ultimately driving down some of these health care costs. So I think it's very important that nurses are a part of this process.”
“I don’t recall in my lifetime a United States president talking about registered nurse issues to the extent this president has,” said Cathy Glasson, RN, president of SEIU Local 199 in Iowa and one of the nurses in attendance. “Registered nurses across the country should perk up when we talk about health care reform, because this president understands our work as registered nurses.”
White House officials invited the nurses, all members of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 85,000 registered nurses. The union used a lottery system to select participating nurses, much of which depended on whether the nurses could provide the necessary security information to obtain clearance, Glasson said. She wishes more nurses could have participated.
“It was incredible,” Glasson said. “We were almost giddy. People were excited about being able to see the president up close and personal. To be in the White House next to the president of the United States was an extreme honor for all of the nurses, including myself. Some described it as surreal, being in the room with the president about four feet from you. He was very engaging and seemed interested in what we had to say.”
Bock learned of the opportunity to participate in the forum less than 48 hours before it began. Having been told the questions were pre-arranged, part of the online process that engaged 3.5 million people in voting on questions for the president to address, Bock did not prepare her question ahead of time. She arrived at the White House on a rainy, overcast morning and easily passed through security with her camera and cell phone.
“It was relaxed and welcoming,” Bock said. “I thought, I’ll absorb everything and learn through this amazing opportunity.”
Obama took several questions from the Web submissions, then proceeded to start calling on people in the East Room and Bock was one of them. She appreciated the opportunity and the president’s willingness to listen to nurses, just as nurses listen to their patients.
“President Obama has an amazing presence, a sense of calmness and control,” Bock said. “He seems on top of things and it felt like things were going well.”
Glasson urges nurses to get involved in the legislative process and to contact their Congressmen about supporting the president’s budget, which includes billions to fund health-reform initiatives..
“There is an urgency,” Glasson says. “It’s important we start covering every person in this person, so we can make sure they can receive and have access to quality, affordable health care. Registered nurses are concerned, because they live and work it every day.”
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