After rolling into town on a “Bernie Bus”, members of National Nurses United set up shop outside of the SUB this week.
Only they weren’t selling things, they were literally giving them away.
From beanies and buttons to bumper stickers endorsing democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, there was no shortage of Bernie-brand goods being distributed by the Nurses 4 Bernie in Cornell Mall on Tuesday.
DeAnn McEwen, a registered nurse with over 40 years of bedside nursing and intensive care experience, said she has become something of a spokesperson for the organization and has been with the group since its inception.
McEwen said she also conducts a traveling seminar on the History of Nursing as a Social Responsibility.
“This is part of the solution: at the bedside I can advocate and give you some education,” she said, “help provide care for people that they can’t provide for themselves,”
McEwen said she is highly critical of the current “prescription pill peddling” healthcare industry system.
“(People) show up on the hospital doorstep with the expectation of help and (that’s not) what happens in a health care industry now that’s focused on profit and providing care to people as a commodity instead of a service,” McEwen said. “We believe that’s unjust.”
McEwen, along with fellow nurses, urged passing students to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
There are dire circumstances surrounding a person’s access to healthcare, she said. Oftentimes, for some people, timely access to preventive medical treatment is a matter of life and death.
“At the door, we want to just say ‘how can we help you?’ (but) people are ashamed. They’re given instructions; the doctor tells them to take a certain medication, they go home and they can’t afford the medications they’re prescribed, so what good is it?” McEwen said. “They go home, and then they come back with a stroke or with a heart attack and that could cause brain injury, and then here they are, alive but not able to work.”
McEwen said the amount of Americans being confronted with health care crises on a regular basis is unsettling.
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In instances such as these, the burden of medical attendance is placed squarely upon the shoulders of family members who end up having to take time off of work in attempting to provide professional quality care they are often unlicensed to provide, she said.
“If this is a system, it isn’t one that works for us,” McEwen said. “It’s a hole in the social safety net, we have a duty to go out and work to change that; to make it better.”
Also taking part in the free Sanders labeled product giveaway was Donna Smith, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America.
People should have an understanding of why the National Nurses United is so fervently in support of Sanders, she said.
“I think the biggest message for me, and for many people, is (one) of fairness,” Smith said. “The system has become so unfair to a vast majority of us in this country, we feel like it’s time for some real, significant, transformational change to the way we do business.”
Smith said she denounced the immense political influence from which specific entities benefit, and said it’s time for it to evolve.
“That’s inhumane, we can’t do that to each other,” she said. “I love my country too, very, very much, and I love it enough to want it to be as good as it can possibly be, and it won’t be good if we continue to leave so many thousands of people behind in our (public) policy.”
Jacob Wolff, a member of UNM Students for Bernie and geography graduate student, said he was excited to be involved in spreading the word about what Sanders can do as president.
He said he is most interested in Sanders’ background with education policy and making higher education accessible to more people as a public good for all citizens.
“It’s time for those of us that care about one another to stand up and say, ‘That’s it. We’re better than this. We know we’re better than this. Our neighbors are better, our friends are better, and we owe it to one another to make this country the best we possibly can,’” Smith said.
Johnny Vizcaino is a staff reporter at the Daily Lobo. Contact him at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
