Nurses can be an integral part of designing public policy as political leaders. As a registered nurse, you have a professional commitment to improve health care. However, many nurses are not politically active and do not lobby for important aspects of their profession.
- What are the reasons many nurses do not actively engage in lobbying efforts?
- What actions can nurses take to encourage themselves and their peers to get involved politically and lobby for specific issues such as healthcare policy changes? Provide a detailed example.
In order to receive full credit, you will need to clearly respond to both parts of the question using subtitles or bullets AND cite at least one scholarly reference in your response.
Vanessa
Reasons why Nurses do not actively engage in Lobbying Efforts
Nurses are essential healthcare practitioners in the clinical setting. They play significant roles in taking of the patients and giving the proper medications to them. Also, it is without doubt that nurses spend more time with patients than doctors. As such, patients are so close with patients and tend to understand better the needs and problems concerned with the patients. Nurses are crucial when designing public policies as political leaders since they are well aware of the needs of patients in the healthcare setting (Rasheed et al., 2020). However, it is unfortunate that many nurses are involved in lobbying for critical aspects regarding their profession since the majority of them are not politically active. One of the significant reasons nurses are not involved and not lobbying for essential aspects is that most of them lack confidence in their ability to participate competently in policy decisions (Rasheed et al., 2020). They also lack pro-activeness about issues concerning their profession in healthcare. Another significant barrier towards nurses’ involvement in politics is poor political process experience.
Actions to be taken
However, there are many ways that nurses can begin becoming proactive in political involvement and lobbying specific issues like healthcare change of policies. Some of the significant actions that nurses need to uphold to become politically active are engaging in campaigning, rallying, voting, volunteering, and frequently contacting elected officials. Nurses also need to collaborate with others while working on locally-induced problems within the healthcare setting (Rasheed et al., 2020). Besides, nurses need to attain membership in organizations that are not associated with nursing and take stands towards political issues. For instance, in a situation where nurses are fewer than the number of patients in hospitals, it is the responsibility of the available nurses to make an effort to air out their problem publicly for the government to take action (Rasheed et al., 2020). Suppose there needs a policy change in the nursing arena. In that case, it is the accountability of nurses to take political moves and ensure a high-end policy change is implemented in the healthcare setting.
References
Rasheed, S. P., Younas, A., & Mehdi, F. (2020). Challenges, Extent of Involvement, and the Impact of Nurses’ Involvement in Politics and Policy Making in in Last Two Decades: An Integrative Review. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 52(4), 446-455.
Additional question that may count towards a peer post:
Hi Class
As nurses we advocate for those in our care. Keeping that in mind, what change in nursing would you lobby for and why?
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