To my fellow nurses and nurse practitioners-

My name is Abby Groseclose. I am a nurse at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and I have dedicated the last year and a half trying to make this hospital the best place it can possibly be. We are organizing a union of nurses and nurse practitioners at NCH’s main campus- inpatient, outpatient, BHP, research, LOSC, and all the departments in between.

I am fighting for this union because nursing is a career that requires us to dedicate more than just our time and energy, but also our hearts. We are here day and night, working long hours, overtime, holidays, weekends, to give our patients the best care. We comfort families during the worst moments of their lives, celebrate with families during the happiest, and bring it all home with us once our shifts end. We deserve the wages, the benefits, the safety, and the staffing to do our jobs right. Nurses EVERYWHERE deserve better. Our voices matter and we know better than anyone what we need.

For too long, nurses have worked in conditions that are unfair. We consider it part of the job. We don’t see that it could be different. All nurses everywhere deserve better. No nurse caring for the children and families in this community should struggle to get by, should need a second job, should have to pick up extra shifts to pay bills. No nurse looking after the most sick and vulnerable babies should worry that she will run out of PTO for her own maternity leave. No nurse should sacrifice the needs of his patients because staffing is unsafe. And no nurse should feel alone when they’ve dedicated their lives to the service of others. Nursing used to be a job for unpaid domestic laborers, untrained charity workers, and young, exploited students. Only through unions has nursing transformed from dangerous and unregulated, to an organized, educated profession. We have unions to thank for our progress and as a union we can keep nursing safe for everybody.

We have the power to make sure this stays a career that compassionate people want to join. We can protect our fellow nurses from burnout. We can prevent the constant revolving door of new nurses quitting because they don’t feel heard. We can reward and recognize the nurses that have given this institution years of dedication. We can make a better life for the nurses who come after us, so they can become the tenured nurses that we admire. It is possible for things to be better.

I want to build a working environment that nurtures every healthcare worker. A union can help us get better wages, benefits, hours, staffing, safety, and so much more. But a union can also change the way nursing is treated as an entire career. We are more than just a number on an assignment sheet, more than just FTE called in to central staffing, more than just the charting needed to make this hospital money. We have knowledge and compassion that this hospital should use to change the lives of our patients, staff, and families. We have the hands-on experience that leadership and hospital administration doesn’t, and we know when a policy, a rule, a roadblock is not in the best interest of our patients. We are not given the power to enact change or advocate for better. THIS UNION WILL GIVE US THAT POWER. 

Under all conditions, nurses make it work. We are forced to go above and beyond to prevent patient harm. Hospital leadership never sees how close things are to falling apart because we don’t let things fall apart. There’s no record of near misses, skipped lunch breaks, heroic efforts, sweat and tears, to prove that patient outcomes depend on our sacrifice. And because of that, they push us harder until we break. We leave bedside, we leave nursing all together, and the patients are the ones who suffer.

Please join me in this fight. If you haven’t yet, sign a union card. Ask your nurse and nurse practitioner friends for their support. We are so much stronger together.

Thank you,

Abby