100,000 RNs Join Global Ebola Awareness Day Actions Wednesday with Vigils, Rallies, Strikes

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/

From California to Florida, from the Philippines to Ireland, 100,000 registered nurses are expected to join a wave of actions to call attention to eroding patient care standards in the U.S. and globally that are symbolized by inadequate preparedness for fighting the Ebola virus.

Major actions, sponsored by National Nurses United, will include a vigil outside the White House in Washington, DC, and a rally of thousands of California nurses outside the Federal Building in downtown Oakland, Ca.

Actions – including RN strikes, candlelight vigils, hospital pickets, and rallies at federal offices – will be held in California, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.

In addition, nurses and healthcare worker unions are holding similar actions in Australia (where nurses are pressing a heightened response on Ebola and other global health concerns at a meeting of G-20 leaders), Canada, Ireland, the Philippines, and Spain.

“The lack of concern for nurses and patients in a world where corporations have taken over our community health care has been magnified during this deadly Ebola crisis,” said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro

“If nurses had not taken to the air waves, to the streets and to the legislatures, there would have been inaction on Ebola.  Everyone passed the buck.  The Centers for Disease Control had no power, and Ebola is the latest in health threats, there will be more to come.  Nurses are demanding patient safety.  They are heroes.  Hospitals should be forced to spend the money on patient safety that they spend on public relations,” DeMoro said…