Nurse News: Polish Nurses Call for Statue’s Removal, Joint Commission Targets Staffing, Off-Duty Nurses Save Lives, Sanders Warns of Crisis, and U.S. Nurses Head to Canada

Welcome to Club Nurse. I'm Colton Lord, your host. By you being here today, it shows me that you are someone who wants to learn, grow, laugh, connect, and just let your emotions flow. We are here to share real stories and hear real life experiences from real people. You are not alone in this, and Club Nurse is here to show you that. Don't forget to follow the show and share today's episode with someone you love. Now let's dive into today's conversation. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Club Nurse Podcast. My name is Colton Lord, your host, and this is your weekly nurse news. I am going to be bringing you some of this week's breaking nurse news, things happening in healthcare, some just feel-good stories, some maybe not so feel-good stories, some things that might make you cringe inside, some things that might make you feel good. I don't know. That's what news does, right? Uh, I think anytime we watch the news, it's kind of like we all just kind of like brace for impact. Like, what are we going to hear this week? Which honestly has always made me kind of hesitant about even talking about these things. But my goal is to at least just educate people, inform people, and listen as you want to, right? Like, if it's too much, if you're going through too much, turn the news off. Just turn it off. Do you know how many times I have been like, I am not listening to that today? And that's not being avoidant. That's just protecting yourself, setting some boundaries. So if you're super stressed, if you're having a really hard time, it's okay. Don't listen to the news. Maybe skip it, but it's not all bad. There's some really good stories in here. Okay, so if you maybe are feeling a little bit bad, just listen. We got some we got some good stories in here. Nurses doing really amazing things. The theme of this week we're gonna get a little bit like you know some Halloween. Like what happened in Poland that's really offending nurses and and making them sign a petition to remove a certain statue. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about some nurses in their day-to-day lives that are just. Saving people left and right because they have the tools and the knowledge and the experience to do so. And whether we like it or not, as nurses, no matter what we're doing in the world, there's always that risk that somebody's going to need us. I have several stories actually of being in public and people needing my help, some medical attention. So we're gonna talk about that. And then we're gonna get a little bit into like Canada, Canadian nurses. Have you ever thought about moving to Canada to be a nurse? I don't know. We're gonna talk about it today. We're gonna talk about a clip that Bernie Sanders is out there talking about nurses, which I found Pretty cool, pretty surprising. And who is the government shutdown affecting? Are nurses going to be affected right now? I don't know. Let's get into it. All right, so let's start off with this story that's coming out of— I believe this is coming out of— yes, Polish nurses want sexist Lara Croft-inspired, in quotes, uh, statue removed from hospital grounds. I'm sorry, if you have not seen this, please look it up. Like, you have got to Google this image. Just Google Polish nurse statue. I promise you it'll come up. This statue is wild to me. Okay, the nurse has— first First of all, has on her little nurse hat, okay? Got her hair. She's got a very low-cut shirt on. She's got her syringe. Like, she looks like she's ready to go out trick-or-treating for this year's Halloween, or she's about to show up to the sexy Halloween party in her nurse costume. I think that's literally what it looks like, which is why I think this has caught some media and some attention, because this is just hilarious. Like, this is not what nurses look like. I'm sorry. Not sorry, actually, at all. I think this is the issue. This is why they're wanting to sign the petition to get this removed. This does not represent nurses. So please do yourself a favor. Either look on the nurse.org website/news, nurse.org/news, read this article, see the image that will be there, or just Google Polish statue nurse. It'll come up. It's just funny. Like it's a figurine. She's in high heels, low-cut shirt, short skirt, posing with an outsized, like a huge syringe that she's like holding. Makes no sense, first of all. This was, I guess, supposed to honor the work of hundreds of nurses, midwives, and female staff inside the medical facility, which I guess when you look it from that perspective. The intention was great and nice, but come on. Like, this, this reminds me of like people who are making policies and regulations and rules about nursing and healthcare and bedside who have never stepped foot at the bedside as a nurse. Like, these, these rules and these, these guidelines and these policies that are written by people who have never worked at the bedside. That's what this reminds me of. Like, have you ever been in a hospital? Have you seen nurses? Like, this is literally something that you would see On the front cover of the packages that you go to— what's that Halloween store? Spirit Halloween store, where you go buy your costumes. This is what you would see on the sexy nurse costume. This is not representative of nurses. Either way, do yourself a favor and go look at that. Just thought that was very fitting as we are coming into our Halloween season. I hope that you all stay very safe this week during Halloween, and I am almost certain that none of you listening will be dressing up as nurses unless you're going to work, and you're not going to look like the statue, I promise. I did want to go back and touch on something that came out weeks earlier. We have not done our news in quite a while. It's been a few weeks. It's been crazy. Life has gotten ahead of us and we've just been really busy here at nurse.org and in our personal lives. Um, but we're back on the nurse news. I'm super excited to keep bringing this to you. But I wanted to touch on this one cuz I thought this was really great. This came out a couple weeks ago, was published on nurse.org/news, published October 13th, about the Joint Commission finally recognizing nurse staffing as a national performance goal in 2026. Wow. Can we get a hallelujah? For the first time, hospitals seeking accreditation must meet specific staffing standards under Goal 12, which states the hospital is staffed to meet the needs of the patients it serves and staff are competent to provide safe, quality care. The new standard places particular emphasis on nursing leadership through Requirement 12.02.01, which specifically highlights the role of nurse executive in direct nurse staffing. Element of performance, 5 further mandates. There must be an adequate number of licensed registered nurses, licensed practical or vocational nurses, and other staff to provide nursing care to all patients as needed. Okay, I love this. You know what? I know us nurses are not the biggest fans of Joint Commission, as we say. They get really mad at us for our straws and other things and eating like human beings. But you know what? I'm gonna give them some claps, some golf claps for this one. High five to Joint Commission, gold star. Please, I hope that you really mean this as a national performance goal, but great, love it. Let's talk about some nurse staffing. I don't know, I don't know which hospital's gonna pass that one, but. All right, let's get into some really, really, really, really good news, I guess I'll say. I mean, I guess, I guess in a way this is like kind of bad news, but the ending for both these stories, Good news. So an off-duty mother-daughter nurse duo use a belt to save a trooper's life after a shooting. So you actually can see, this is a little bit of a trigger warning, but there is body cam footage of the trooper who was just doing a routine traffic stop, ended up being ambushed, was shot in the leg. Moments later, people rolled up on the scene 'cause they were on just like a road, a highway. And you can see the body cam footage of this mother-daughter duo, nurses who come in, use a belt, tie it off, help to stop the bleeding, holding pressure. Pressure till paramedics and things arrive to kind of take over from there. It's just great. Nurses are out every day. This is what I'm saying. And like I told you, I have had multiple instances in, in my life already in my 6, 7 years as a nurse where I've had to kind of step in. I've never really had to do, I guess, like life-saving measures in public. And I shouldn't say that because I'm probably jinxing myself, but outside the ER of my, my usual work, which I haven't worked in the ER 6 to 8 months. Side note on that, but what I'm saying is I haven't had that experience yet in public. Having to do like chest compressions or or tie bandage or a tourniquet or anything around somebody's leg to stop the bleeding. I've had friends that I've heard stories from. Like this happens every single day. There's always emergencies in public, and they're always looking for nurses. If you're on an airplane, what's the first thing they do when somebody is needing some medical attention? Do we have any nurses? It goes ding ding. Do we have any nurses or doctors or medical professionals on board? So I promise you, if it hasn't happened to you yet, it will eventually. But I really like this. Story in particular because it's just, you know, the whole, the whole thing of Stop the Bleed. And even if you don't have a trauma kit, there's things— I don't remember whose belt that they used, if it was one of the nurses or if it was the trooper, if they used his belt. But either way, just smart, you know. Nurses just think— we think super quick, uh, we know how to act in emergencies. And I promise, if things are going awry, you're going to want a nurse there for, for many, for several reasons. Uh, Stop the Bleed was a national campaign launched in 2015 that aims to prepare bystanders for bleeding emergencies just like this. The program teaches basic techniques like applying direct pressure, packing wounds, and using tourniquets. According to the National Library of Medicine, proper tourniquet application can cut mortality rates by up to 57% for patients with life-threatening limb injuries. For nurses, this is a reminder that your skills do not clock out when you do. Whether you're working a shift, headed to the beach, or sitting in traffic, knowing how to improvise can be the difference between life and death. And that is the truth. I had a friend once, she told me the story. I won't get too far into it. This is her story, but basically was just at a lake. There was an emergency with a boat and a human blood, and they stepped up. Same thing, her and her mom stepped up to kind of help save the day. Um, so super amazing. Uh, these nurses' names are— let's make sure we shout them out correctly here. Uh, the Kentucky State Trooper was Trooper Ramillion, and it was Jessica and Taylor along with Jessica's husband Jimmy Alexander. Those are the people who stepped up, stepped in, and really saved this trooper's life. We love this. They had no medical supplies. They really just improvised and stayed calm under pressure. You can watch, like I said, the body cam footage, and you can You can see them coming up and just doing their thing like nurses do. So shout out. Got another story of another nurse stepping up. So there was in San Diego, there was a 10K race. There was a 62-year-old woman who crossed the finish line and went into cardiac arrest. And guess who was there standing by? Drum roll. Yes, it was Christy Morkos, a cardiology nurse practitioner at Scripps Memorial Hospital.

Wow.

Was there. I think she was also competing in the race if I am remembering correctly. Noticed that this person Was in distress and instantly started doing CPR and used a defibrillator to help revive the runner of this 10K race, the Aloha Run in San Diego. Ironically enough, the husband as well, Dr. Peter Morkos, is also a cardiologist who also assisted in saving, saving the life of Kim Stevens. That was the name of the 62-year-old woman who had collapsed after the Aloha Run in San Diego. Cardiac arrest was helped by Christy Morkos, the cardiology nurse practitioner at Scripps Memorial, and then also her husband. husband is a cardiologist also at the same hospital. So you know what, that runner was lucky. She had really the 2 people you really want to be there if you go down. Saved her life. She's alive. So like I said, both those stories of nurses just stepping in, doing their thing— the people, the patients, the civilians, they lived, which we love to hear it. So let's transition a little bit here. Let's talk about Bernie Sanders. Shout out Bernie. Uh, if you have not seen, he came to Instagram Come into my office with tears streaming down their eyes.

They were there because they said, we were trained to do our jobs. We can't do our jobs. We don't have the staffing to do our jobs. It breaks our heart that we can't provide the quality service. Our people are suffering, patients suffering, sometimes dying. You're absolutely right.

And that is Bernie Sanders, if you're able to hear that. And he's also talking with NNU President Mary Turner, who is a registered nurse, as they talk about safe staffing. Let's hear a little bit from President Mary Turner.

It's not called burnout, okay? It's called moral distress. When nurses go home and I feel especially for our young nurses who come out and they come out with all these grandiose plans to be able to take care of their patients the best that they can. And then because of short staffing, workplace violence, just horrible working conditions, schedules that are not manageable, They go into their parking lot crying their eyes out because they feel defeated. Okay. They feel like this is not what I signed up for. I wanted to make a difference in my patient's life, and I don't feel like I'm doing that. And just add that to the many reasons why nurses are leaving the bedside. Once again, we do not have a shortage. We are not treating our nurses right, and we need to start treating them right because they are the backbone of health care.

Period. Period. Bernie Sanders. Mary Turner is the president of National Nurses United. Love that. Thank you. I think hearing any kind of just acknowledgement from anybody with status or in the political world is just— it is important as people start to recognize and understand the job that nurses do and the help that we don't have. So let's kind of transition here. I thought this was really interesting that 62 young nurses leave New Brunswick for every 100 who start. This is coming out of Canadian news. I'm just saying that the province's retention rate is second worst in the country, says the Montreal Economic Institute. Not far off from the United States. Hello with retention. I just found out that that statistic was wild. The 62 young nurses leave New Brunswick for every 100 who start. Like, we need more support for nurses, especially new nurses. And then to kind of piggyback off of the Canadian topic here, as they are, they're starting to put out Yeah. Is recruiting American nurses who are tired of Donald Trump and the political landscape that is in America. One nurse goes on to talk about how she's been a nurse in Southern California for 20 to 25 years, from labor and delivery to emergency nursing to trauma, and she's packing up and she's taking a job and heading to Canada. And as we just saw, I mean, there's, there's no perfect world for nursing, right? I think Canada also has their problems. We should probably speak to a Canadian nurse. I don't want to speak on their behalf, but I'm sure that they have a slew of issues as well, as that's just healthcare It's nursing. It's, it's not— it's, I think across the board, it's just not a great profession as far as how we treat nurses as a society as a whole. But in today's political landscape in America, that's what this ad is saying. They are literally recruiting American nurses to leave America and go work in Canada. So I don't know if you've ever thought about it. That's— here's maybe an idea for you. As of today, as I am talking to you, we are still among a government shutdown as of October 27th, 2025. Most nurses really aren't affected by this except for if you are a government worker, which— don't quote me on this, but if you are part of the VA, the Veteran Affairs. Yes, so it looks like some of the VA nurses, they are considered essential employees and must continue working. But VA— some VA medical centers and clinics will remain open. Care is uninterrupted. Nurses may experience delays in receiving their paychecks. Some VA nurses have expressed some concern about timing of their pay. It's tough out there. I think there's a lot of federal workers who are coming up on missing their first paycheck, military, like I just said, VA nurses. So it's really disheartening, really difficult. My heart goes out to anybody out there. I can't imagine just all of a sudden abruptly going without pay, even though you're still showing up and doing the job. So hopefully this ends soon. Hopefully people can start getting money back in their pocket. Again, really sorry for any of our VA nurses out there who are experiencing this. All right, and really that's That's it, I think, on this week for nurses' news that I wanted to cover. There's more out there. We publish articles constantly every single day on nurse.org/news. So if you like to read articles, if that's how you like to consume your news or get up to date on information, be sure to check out nurse.org/news. If you're liking this podcast, you can catch us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and then also nurse.org/clubnurse. You can find me on Instagram or on TikTok @nursecolton. If you are interested in this, be sure to follow Follow nurse.org on all socials. And yeah, thank you for being here. We appreciate you and we'll catch you next time. Bye. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to thank you for being here at Club Nurse. I hope you gained something valuable from today's episode. And if you did, remember to share this episode with someone that you love. Follow me on socials @nursedaddies or @coltonlord17, and be sure to follow nurse.org to stay informed with all of the hottest healthcare topics. Until next time, take care of yourself the way you take care of everyone else. Love ya.

Bye.