Fighting For What You Believe
By Cynthia S. Perry, CPNP, MSN

The phone call came in that morning and it wasn't good news. The city budget was being voted on by our City Council in 24 hours. Included in this budget was the elimination of some school nurse positions. I was one of the supervisors of this department and was told that the cuts were inevitable. Our city health department provided the school nurses to a large intercity public school district, and already our human resources were stretched well beyond the recommended ration of one nurse to every 750 students. I've worked in the school nursing field for over 16 years, both in direct care and management, and I was well aware of the city's needs. The reality of the job is that there are never enough resources to accomplish the many needs of our schools and now we were going to have even less to work with.

The other supervisor and I met and talked that morning about how we would handle the situation. We considered which nurses we could juggle and which schools would no longer get nursing services. We also talked about how we could keep morale up for a dedicated staff that gave so much to the children of our community: hardly ever taking lunch without interruption, putting together programs on their own time and spending their own money to buy things for kids who needed so much. Many were making less money than they made before coming to us and put everything they had into their job because they believed in the value of a child. All morning we tried to come up with plans to deal with the impending situation, but neither of our hearts were in it. The truth was that we wanted to fight for our budget, but we were told that it was futile to do so.

Sometimes the strength to do what seems impossible comes in a totally unexpected way. I found strength that day while at lunch at a fast food restaurant. A young woman in her twenties was the manager of the restaurant, aptly named Angel, as I needed an angel at that point.

The young woman walked up to me and said, "Ms. Cindy, do you remember me? I just wanted you to know I'm doing good. Thank you."

I remembered the woman as a young teenage mom who came from a family with a lot of struggles. She was always getting into some type of trouble and tended to skip school as often as she came. She and I had some spirited discussions about her future and I never thought she heard what I was trying so hard for her to hear: that she deserved better. With that "thank you," I realized she had heard me in her own time. I made up my mind right then and there that we were going to fight and somehow we were going to win.

We sought community support for school nurses and it came in well beyond our expectations. In less than 24 hours, our city council members' offices were inundated with thousands of telephone calls from principals, teachers and parents on the need for school nurses. Our budget wasn't cut that year and within the next year it was actually increased.

Sometimes you have just got to believe that people are going to hear what you are trying so hard to say. This time they did, and the children of our community won.