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Visiting nurse promotes advocacy Health Care Professionals Member of the Year: JoAnn Walsh 
April 7, 2004
It's in both the minutia of the day and the magnitude of the profession where Walsh has made her mark. During last summer's blackout that knocked out power in the Northeast, this registered nurse and her aides stayed with senior citizens they care for in a four-building complex in New York City. Without elevator service, many patients in the lobby were faced with the challenges of how to get their medicine in the 24-story building. Others were stuck in elevators. Walsh and her aides made sure that, even in the darkness, patients got medicine and water, and were consoled. The patients that Walsh cares for are senior citizens with multiple health and personal problems, and sometimes she is a lone advocate for them in the outside world. Recognition as Health Care Professionals Member of the Year by New York State United Teachers is good medicine for a woman who has become familiar with unions as both a member and an advocate. Walsh wears her advocacy as easily as the nurse's uniform she first put on 22 years ago. One day, while putting nursing equipment into her car after a long shift with a suicidal patient, she injured her back. Since then her antidote for pain has been to educate others about workplace safety. She has testified before both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on workplace safety and the U.S. Senate after President Bush took office and wiped away workplace safety gains. "As a result of Joann testifying before OSHA and the Senate, she realized how important the union is in protecting workers rights," said Anne Goldman, nurse representative to the United Federation of Teachers, which represents Visiting Nurses Service of New York. Most recently, Walsh was in Washington, D.C., again, working with the American Federation of Teachers Healthcare Division on its 25th anniversary to lobby for the abolition of mandatory overtime, safe nurse-patient ratios and other nursing issues. She wants to educate lawmakers who make health-care decisions. "Hand-to-hand contact is good, but I felt I also needed to look at the bigger picture," Walsh said. "It affects the care that we give." Walsh is also a union delegate, grievance representative, health and safety committee member and labor-management committee member. She began her work as a medical secretary but then, encouraged by her husband, took night classes to become a registered nurse. She rose in her profession through the support of colleagues. "They've pulled me in and asked me to do things I didn't think I could do. They saw things in me I didn't see in myself," Walsh said. "If someone had said to me I'd be testifying before Congress ... I'd say 'get out of here.' I'm a quiet person - except when I'm fighting for my patients." - Liza Frenette
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