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Promoting the public's health
by
Tom Bissonnette, MS, RN
Executive Director of Nursing Practice & Operations
Nurses within the Michigan Nurses Association have a long history of promoting the public’s health. Prior to World War II, most nursing care in Michigan was provided outside of hospitals, “out in public.” MNA nurses were leaders in containing the legendary pandemic flu outbreak of the early 20th century, in educating our neighbors and families about strategies to limit children’s exposure to the polio virus in the 1950s, and in educating the Michigan public about sexually transmitted diseases. Today, our tradition of promoting the public’s health continues with a focus on environmental health.
Environmental health news seems to be all around us today. Global warming, lead in children’s toys, lidane, cancer- causing pesticides, mercury in immunizations, and mercury and other toxins in the emissions from coal powered electric plants all have an impact on the public’s health.
Nurses have readily engaged in the successful process of slowly eliminating toxins from the hospital work environment. The most notable of these successes is mercury. Hospitals are dangerous enough workplaces for nurses, with insufficient staffing, inadequate patient lifting and moving resources, limited input by direct care nurses into workplace design, and exposure to potent chemotherapeutic agents. Continued work and vigilance in eliminating dangerous toxins and ensuring appropriate protection within the health care workplace for nurses is needed to achieve future successes.
Meanwhile, nurses, like a majority of the public, are awakening to the realization that our non-workplace environments also need attention to promote our own and the public’s health. Al Gore and others have confronted us with the inconvenient truth about global warming. You will read about other inconvenient truths in this issue of the Michigan Nurse. The truths are inconvenient because they jar us out of our complacency concerning the world in which we work and live.
I have been re-elected to a second three year term on the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC), a coalition of 70 environmentally concerned organizations throughout the state. We are partnering with one of those organizations, the Ecology Center, to receive financial support from the Beldon Fund for MNA to employ an Environmental Health Nurse Policy Specialist through the Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health.
During January and February, MNA co-sponsored a radio campaign with the MEC to promote the use of readily available “scrubber” technology in coal powered electric plants which virtually eliminates mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and fine particulate matter from the emissions of these plants. Eliminating these emissions reduces the mercury found in our Great Lakes’ fish and reduces the incidence of asthma. Watch for more news about the promotion of the public’s health through MNA’s efforts in promoting environmental health soon!
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