AFSCME Nurses Face Dilemma

WASHINGTON, D.C.

They traveled here from all across the country — Hawaii to Maine. They brought their concerns over the quality of patient care in a health care system that has been turned into a money machine for a few greedy entrepreneurs. And they were on a mission.

The more than 250 nurses — RNs, LPNs, and LVNs — who met at the Sixth National Nurses Congress sponsored by United Nurses of America studied and developed the skills they will need to return morality and ethical practice to patient care.

For four days, they cheered each other’s successes and participated in structured sessions that provided them with tools to use on the job and in the community — tools that will help them organize and keep health care focused on the patient, not the bottom line.