AAPI Heritage Month: Being a union nurse empowers me to address health inequities.
by Jennifer Huynh, RN, Garfield Medical Center
I’ve always been fascinated by healing, even as a child. My friends would even come to me with their medical questions, just because they knew I had an interest in medicine.
As I grew up, I saw in healthcare a way to take care of people, to nurture them at their most vulnerable.
As an undergrad in Sacramento, I worked at a free clinic helping a low-income Chinese population who didn’t speak English. I saw first-hand the unequal access to treatment and unequal health outcomes that immigrants receive because of language barriers. I felt fortunate my parents taught me to speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, and I wanted to pay forward that foundation they provided by helping my community.
That’s why I returned to work at the very hospital where I was born — Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park. I started there as an EMT, and continued as an ER nurse. I was excited to give back to my community, and about the trajectory of my career in the ER.
In many ways, nurses run the ER. Doctors put in the orders, but nurses are at the bedside and interact with patients more. I love working in that environment.
But there is a problem at Garfield’s ER — management has imposed policies that made nurses concerned about the quality of care our patients receive. ER nurses have been made to “float” (take assignments in) areas we’re completely unfamiliar with. And without providing us with any additional resources, management increased our workload with admissions paperwork that pulled nurses away from our patients.
At lots of hospitals, nurses would have had no recourse to address those policies. But Garfield’s nurses are union members, and we’ve joined together to push back.
Ultimately, all nurses just want what’s best for our patients. As I’ve gotten more involved in my union I’ve seen some positive developments. My co-workers are beginning to recognize that that the union is more than just talk, it’s a way to make change. We can take ownership of our work and we can take better care of our patients. We have greater job satisfaction as a result.
Nurses at Garfield — including AAPI nurses — have become more assertive. We tell management what they need to do to improve the quality of patient care. That’s the confidence that comes with being a union nurse.
Becoming a nurse helped me fulfill my lifelong desire to contribute to the health of those around me. Becoming a union member — and now a union steward — has empowered me to speak out when something is wrong. Now I can give back to the community that raised me, and address inequities in the care they receive.