PHOTO/PEGGY ELWELL
LOS ANGELES, CA — I’ve been a nurse for 12 years. I work in Long Beach in medical/surgical assignments. I work with all systems as an emergency room nurse. Most of my patients are diabetics. In our community care is good; patients come from all over Long Beach and even some from Los Angeles. The issue is people only come in when they’re sick because they can’t afford doctors, medical care, or medicine. They’re in bad health and we’ll see the same patients come back again into the emergency room. Diabetes affects everything in their body. Patients in our neighborhoods don’t have access to good food! There are no markets in their neighborhood and good food is expensive, so they rely on the $1meal at McDonald’s.
Obama Care, the Affordable Care Act, is not a good system. More people are covered under Obamacare, but our hospital moves people out quicker! In the morning, we have meetings about what we, as nurses, can do to get people out quicker. This is a dilemma for us because the license we get from California is based on protecting our patients. Obama Care also meant fewer ancillary people. With Obama Care, all hospitals are pressured into going electronic which means the nurses spend a lot more time at the computer.
At my hospital we have a union, the California Nurses Association and we are behind Medicare for All. We showed up at Anthony Rendon’s (Speaker of the California Assembly) office and we went to the Assembly to plead for Medicare for All. When Rendon blocked AB 562 from a vote in the Assembly, I couldn’t believe that a Democrat and a resident of the 63rd Assembly District could vote against such a health care bill. There are a lot of poor areas in the 63rd district, a lot of problems and Rendon is aware of this. His blocking of Medicare for all was shameful.
Therefore, I support Maria Estrada for the 63rd Assembly district in the California primary this March. Rendon is beholden to corporations in this district. They are some of his major contributors.
A nurse speaks out: We need Medicare for All!
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