Nurses are a boon on Earth, similar to doctors. Therefore, their profession is highly sacred all over world. but, this is ironical that nurses seldom involve themselves in political agendas. This paper presents a sound idea about the role of nurses in political arena all over world along with suggesting some suitable measures that should be considered by nurses from the perspective of political advocacy. Nurses are chosen as distinct community for this paper as nurses as activists or political advocates are seldom available (Premji & Hatfield, 2016). Along with this, there is very less number of researches on the role of nurses in politics. Therefore, this paper tends to fill that gap. This research focuses on nursing community as political advocate for patients as well as other professionals.
There are very less number of nurses at the highest level of policymakers which leads to ineffective policies for nurses at national and international level. The nurses are not aware enough regarding their rights along with lack of expertise in politics (Osuna, 2014). The number of nurses union is very less that makes nurses vulnerable to arbitrary policies. The nursing community can be a strong advocate for patients as well because nurses know about personal information and situation of the patient so they can be good advocates for patients as well. For example, monetary reproduction leads to various kind of discrimination against women. May times adoption of child becomes bone of content between biological parents and the mother who actually gives birth to baby. The nursing community needs to advocate rights not only for itself but also patients (Haws, 2015). Therefore, it is imperative for nursing community to advocate its rights at the highest level of administration.
The nursing community is not united at the international level so there is no effective rule or regulation regarding them. Nursing community is a professional community that has become globalised due to dissemination of diseases and ideas in all corners of the world. But, nurses are not powerful enough to advocate rights of patients and their community itself (Brown, 2016). The nursing community is not able to make collective and inclusive efforts due to unawareness regarding their rights. There is no international institution that caters to needs of nurses so it is imperative to research on the issue and take views regarding the professional attributes of nursing profession.
There can be many benefits of awakened nursing community (Davoodvand, Abbaszadeh, & Ahmadi, 2016). Firstly, the nursing community can pressurize political authorities to bring health related reforms wherever desired. Nursing as a pressure group will provide better avenues for patients as well as nursing community to channelize the grievances through appropriate authority. The next benefit is for nurses themselves as they will have better opportunities in their professional career. Therefore this research focuses on politics as a profession for nursing professionals. As this is the interview based research it will be qualitative; thus comprehendible for every reader (Schwartzbach, 2017). The interviewer can be biased against outcomes so he or she should be of impeccable behvaiour so as to prevent moulding of answers given by interviewee.
The interviews of political authorities as well as nurses will be conducted in this research. The political authorities will be asked about feasibility of idea of nurses joining political field or appointing nurses at the highest ranked positions (Premji & Hatfield, 2016). The nurses must be aware of their political rights so that they can advocate for nursing community as well as patients. The questions pertaining to topic will be asked from nurses as well (Osuna, 2014). Their views on idea of nurses being chosen as political advocate will be gathered. These interviews will be recorded and analysed for study leading to development of big data that can be used by policy makers. The data related to awareness of political rights among nurses and their capability to perform well at political level will be analysed. The data pertaining to nursing community will be gathered and their role in society will be assessed (Haws, 2015). The nursing community would serve as an indicator of women empowerment whereby women are involved in political activities leading to their empowerment.
The research questions that will be explored in this study are as follows:
- What are the benefits of political awareness among nurses for society?
- How much capable nurses are to handle political positions?
- How political awareness among nurses is related to women empowerment?
The political awareness among nurses is beneficial for society because they can act as a link joining policy makers and local persons. The health sector will get benefit of socially aware administrators who work in coherence with the policy of nation. The nurses as administrators would not be effective if they are not given proper training therefore enhancing capabilities of nurses through effective training will be feasible idea. It can be done by including relevant information in the curriculum of nursing courses at graduation and post-graduation level so that nurses are acquainted with the political processes and involve themselves actively in political developments for the betterment of society (Garrett, 2015). The political awareness among nurses will help in their empowerment as women as mentioned above but at the same time it will lead to empowerment of other women who seek to find out problems of health issues from nurses (Davoodvand, Abbaszadeh, & Ahmadi, 2016).
The political advocacy by women will provide nurses a higher place in the social hierarchy but it may also lead to politicization of particular medical organization the nurse belongs to (Carlson, 2016). Lethargy and reckless attitude among nurses can create gruesome consequences for whole society so there is need to prevent such effects on nursing profession. Therefore it is highly recommended that nurses are provided training during their studies itself so that they can give exemplary performance in political arena as well. The next recommendation is to make nurses assertive regarding their rights at political level so that they can act as pressurizing group for policymakers and fix the accountability of persons working in administration. The practical application of political practices will provide better idea for them to deal with political problems. The political awareness will lead to better avenues of economic growth for patients as well as nurses thereby contributing to national effort of economic growth (Brown, 2016).
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that nurses can be bulwark against many societal problems associated with medical sector. Therefore this research will take the views of political and nursing authorities at the highest level and provide qualitative analysis of such views. The qualitative nature of study will be easy to understand for policymakers as well as all other persons who are not from arithmetic background. It is recommended to provide training to nurses at the graduation level so that they can understand the political developments and act accordingly (Betty J. Ackley). The nurses will act for the betterment of society leading to their empowerment along with empowerment of other women. Along with this, this research will help assess the capabilities of nurses to handle political positions. The nursing profession at the national and international level must be provided with effective rules and regulations so that nurses can act as political advocates and able to form a lobbying group in the medical sector. This will make whole system accountable leading to better lobbying and policy formulation.
References
Betty J. Ackley, G. B. (n.d.). Nursing Diagnosis Handbook: An Evidence-Based Guide to Planning Care.
Brown, T. (2016). The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives. oxford press.
Carlson, K. (2016). ENA Advocacy and Activism. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 371-372.
Davoodvand, S., Abbaszadeh, A., & Ahmadi, F. (2016). Patient advocacy from the clinical nurses’ viewpoint: a qualitative study. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 67-69.
Garrett, J. (2015). The Survival Guide for Nursing Students.
Haws, J. (2015). Nursing Mnemonics: 108 Memory Tricks to Demolish Nursing School.
Osuna, M. (2014). Nursing School Thrive Guide. oxford press.
Premji, S. S., & Hatfield, J. (2016). Call to Action for Nurses/Nursing. BioMed Research International, 56-58.
Schwartzbach, S. M. (2017). Oh Sh*t, I Almost Killed You! A Little Book of Big Things Nursing School Forgot to Teach You. CCRN.
