My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Crossing the line
Only another hour to go on the picket line outside the ER parking lot, but Van Truong's bladder wasn't going to last that long. She told their group leader, Raydean Rego, a veteran oncology nurse, that she had to use the lua. Clarita Delos Reyes, a recent HPU nursing grad working in obstetrics, said she did too.
Van, a charge nurse in the ER, hadn't known Clarita until they ended up on the same picket line. By now, everybody knew everything about everybody else and their families. Clarita, born in Hawaii not long after her parents came from Ilocos Norte, was her family's first college graduate. Just as Van was, although she got a late start -- after escaping Vietnam on a leaky boat.
She hadn't become a nurse to get rich, Van thought, as they walked across the street to use the DOE lua. She became a nurse to help people. Yes, it was important that she could earn a decent wage, and it was respectable work. The Florence Nightingale effect. But the main thing was that as a nurse she was helping people.
Respectable? Van was feeling more and more like a Teamster or something. She wasn't there when it happened, but heard about a family whose father was dying and they had so much trouble getting through the picket lines, by the time they finally got inside to say good-bye he was dead already. Talk about patient care.
Then there was the nurse who worked for a doctor in private practice and went by the store after work wearing her scrubs and was accosted by a man who shouted and swore at her about the strike and she should get the hell back to helping sick people. R-e-s-p-e-c-t? Florence Nightingale was about to become Rodney Dangerfield.
Back outside, Van also thought again of what Dr. Laurie said. Patient complaints were down. Doctor satisfaction was up. Her replacement nurse in the ER was good, Dr. Laurie said, but she wanted Van back.
"I can't do this any more," Van said, nodding toward the picket line. "This isn't why I became a nurse."
"You're crossing the line?"
Van nodded, and Clarita whispered: "I wish I could. I just graduated and bought a car. I really need to work. Plus it's almost Christmas. But I'm afraid ... and Raydean said we need to honor those who've gone before..."
"Do what you have to do." Van patted her arm.
With that she walked back to the line and right through it as her former friends screamed X-rated epithets. Van heard an apple whizzing past her ear and ducked into the ER.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com