In this article you will read on Nurses In Politics: A Panacea To Professional Development
NURSES IN POLITICS: A PANACEA TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Political involvement is key to every profession, institution and organizational development. Most at times nurses limit themselves to the minute epicenter and focus of their profession leaving out the foremost consideration of establishing a baseline and foundation in which the profession will stand. The politics of nurses over time has been observed to be shrouded and ends in the college and universities. Even those who tried to outlive this philosophy end up still in the professional association. Let me quickly run a review of some of the vital professional political participants that led to the outbreak and tremendous change in the world. According to the annual Ipsos Morris veracity index for 2019 found nurses to be the most trusted profession among the British public while politicians were the least making it the fourth time winning record in Britain. In America, Nursing was rated the most honest and standard ethical profession 2019. It is highly and promisingly recognized and established that nurses can be trusted, are honest and are ethically inclined to human preservation and consideration among others, which are the basic qualities of leaders and politicians, prerequisites for involving in politics.
Dr. Haney DNP, FNP-C, FAANP ran for the office of Yorda Linda city council for the state of California in 2016 and won. Dr Haney who was an American nurse had experience serving on boards such as California Nurse Practitioner Association (CNPA). Apart from being a Nurse Practitioner and a nurse educator, she is also an entrepreneur. As soon as she was elected into office, she stated one of the challenges she faced was learning all the fascinating aspects of running a city in a short amount of time it was like implementing the nursing care plan. Meanwhile, it was pretty much easier because of her experience as a nurse. She went so much into acting a member of the decision making body for the city even in matters pertaining to adequate and good quality health delivery.
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Ms Kearney an Australian nurse was elected assistant federal secretary of the Australian nursing and midwifery federation who later entered into the federal politics in Australia 2010. Ms Kearney had his later career in the federal politics where he became a public administrator.
Helen M. Thomson, a registered nurse who served in several elected offices of public service in California 1974 was elected as a member of the saint Davis joint unified school district board of education and then the Yolo county board of supervision in 1986 and reelected 1990and 1994. In 1996, she won the 8th district seat in the California state assembly where she served three terms. She chaired both the health committee and the select committee on mental health. Helen M. Thomson also served on five standing committees and leadership teams of four speakers and other leadership roles (Nurses report). She was a grand player in mental health policies in California State and other health policies and highly technical nursing advocacy.
A congress woman Eddie Bernice Johnson studied nursing at Saint Mary’s college at the university of Notre Dame. She was a chief psychiatric nurse at the VA hospital in Dallas who later got her nursing bachelor degree at Texas Christian University in 1967. She later earned a masters degree in public administration 1976. She became the first nurse to be elected into the US congress where she continued her political career.
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Lauren Underwood was sworn in into the 116th US congress 3rd January 2019. She became the youngest African American woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives. She worked with medical plan prior to her election in Chicago to enable good quality health delivery and cost efficient care. She also served as a senior advisor at the US department of Health and human services (HHS) helping communities across the country to prevent, prepare and respond to disasters, bioterrorism threats and public health emergencies. She helped in implementing the Affordable Care Act broadening access for those on Medicare, improving healthcare quality and reforming private insurance. She was also a tutor for masters’ student for the university of Georgetown online masters programme for registered nurses.
Some of the challenges nurses face that prevents them from participating in politics according to Dr Haney are fear, pure and simple. Most of them are afraid. Some are too pure as they claimed to participate. This is more or less on religious perspective. While others are too simple to involve in it. Another one is that they feel it is a dirty game as this is popular among the African nurses. The more nurses fail to participate the more the dereliction, intimidation, dwindling and retrogression they are likely to face in the profession not just now but in time to come. It is obvious and crystal clear how these individuals above who participated in politics affected their countries and the world at large in the facet of nursing through their participation in vital health decision making, planning and implementation and through the passing of nursing and medical bills that helped improve, pronounced and made more relevant the impact of nurses globally. The matter of the need for nurses’ participation in governmental country politics cannot be overemphasized as it is indeed a panacea to nursing professional development.
