Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ryn Gluckman, a native of Clarendon, an emergency department nurse for over a decade who is the co-chair of the Rutland Area NAACP’s Health Committee.
An Open Letter to the Nursing Community of Rutland
My nursing friends, we have a public health crisis on our hands that we need to acknowledge. We recently became aware that a Black mother and leader in our community, Tabitha Moore, will be forced to move from her house as a result of racially motivated violence against her and her children. This comes two years after former representative Kiah Morris had to resign her seat in the Legislature after ongoing racial harassment and a lack of response from the police and community. To not be safe in your home or your job, to fear for your children’s lives in the neighborhood in which you live, has serious and often lethal health impacts. We as nurses have a strong role to play in making communities safe, but I notice a profound silence from nurses when it comes to the treatment of Black people in Rutland.
The idea that all lives are valuable has been a core tenet of nursing practice since the very beginning of the profession which is why some nurses are drawn to the slogan “All Lives Matter.” But we must be very, very careful not to confuse this principle with the current reality. The current reality is that all lives don’t matter, not in health care and not in the larger community. If all lives mattered we would not see the gross health disparities that Black people face in this country or in our state. Across the board, Black patients are less likely to be medicated for pain after traumatic injury, have longer wait times in the ER, are more likely to die of preventable pregnancy-related complications, and are more likely to contract and die of Covid-19, to name just a few of these disparities. If all lives truly mattered, Black women in Vermont would not need to leave their homes or their jobs to keep their families safe.
Before nurses can bring about a world in which all lives truly do matter, we must look racism in the face, name it for what it is, and declare unequivocally that Black lives matter to us. Our Black patients, colleagues and neighbors need to hear from us. They are suffering. They are dying. Staying silent is not choosing to be neutral, it’s choosing to be complicit. To know that racism is threatening the health of community members and to say nothing is akin to noticing that a patient is dying and taking no action. It is a violation of our practice.
I am asking us, as nurses in the Rutland community, to take a principled and public stand against racism here in Vermont. We must write and speak out in the community, to acknowledge that racism in this community exists and that it is a threat to ALL of our wellbeing. We must muster the courage to have crucial conversations with our physician colleagues about how we treat BIPOC patients, what assumptions we make, and how we could do better. This action is often scary and feels like a risk, but if I know a thing about nurses it is that fear is a small barrier when it comes to advocating for our patients. We saw this illustrated just last week as LPN Dawn Wooten spoke out about her willingness to become a target rather than remain silent about medical abuse of women at an ICE detention center.
Nurses are the most trusted professional in America. This is a trust that has been built through a long history of marrying our values to action, not just at the bedside but on the street and the Senate floor. The current conditions require a public response from nurses at the frontline. The nursing students at CCV and Castleton are watching us. Our BIPOC patients and neighbors are listening to us. What we do or don’t do when Black lives are in danger will inform how they think about us and the practice of nursing moving forward. I believe that Vermont nurses can be leaders in creating safe communities. We don’t need to wait for a physician’s order. We can’t lead with silence. Now is the time to be loud.
