I have no problem saying this publicly and Ochsner can sue me for defamation or find a way to put my license in jeopardy or black list me from being hired by them in the future or any number of things that hospitals and healthcare corporations do to bully nurses

Because I have a lot less to lose than most people and someone has to say it

My recruiter called me to tell me that the contracts of at least 45 agency employees (local and travel) were canceled without any notice at all. Presumably because census is down because COVID cases are down and we're not at a point yet where they can resume business as usual

Nurses who gave damn near everything...

Working short staffed and with inadequate PPE in an extremely chaotic and disorganized situation and in what might be the most mentally, physically, emotionally, and especially psychologically draining healthcare environment we may ever encounter in our lifetimes

To fight a pandemic when New Orleans needed them the most

Are now being dropped without a second thought

Because, after all, running a hospital is a business and we, the workers, are their last consideration. COVID is new, but that's not new

Technically, per our contract, they can cancel us at any time for any reason. And it doesn't affect me much because I live here. But that doesn't make it right

When I tell you this was without notice, I mean it was absolutely without notice. They're not even having nurses finish out their shifts for THIS week

There's no consequence to me other than that I'll be short 2 weeks of pay before I go to California which is not a huge deal... especially at a time when a lot of people have lost their jobs entirely

But I'm sad for the travelers who arranged to leave their families and/or had to sign up to work whatever number of cities/states away from home because they're affected by someone else's loss of income and/or have to now pay for housing that they won't be using and on and on

I'm extremely disappointed today, but hopeful for the future. Because, if there's one thing that I'd bet my money on, having seen what I've seen and heard what I've heard, it's that in a post-COVID world (if there is a post-COVID world), the unions are coming

Acknowledge it. This is your heads-up

Nurses are DONE. We have seen not just how replaceable we are, but now also how disposable we are. We actually risked our lives this time because no one beyond our local governments could be bothered to try to organize effective action to get us safe PPE

I don't blame my local government for this failure because that's not in the wheelhouse of local governments. This is a global pandemic. It needed to happen at a federal level

Even before COVID, we had been screaming into the void

About unsafe staffing and working 12+ hour shifts without breaks and jumping through hoops to get meaningful raises and having our licenses and professional reputations always on the line because we're first to be thrown under the bus, et cetera

It's time to shake up the turtle stack from the very bottom because the whole damn turtle tower is teetering right now. We are maxed. The status quo is not sustainable

I was uncharacteristically optimistic that, in all of this, our worth would finally be recognized. It wasn't

This is my fight now. Being blindsided like this made it my fight