When Barack Obama answered straight up in the last debate that he considered healthcare a right, I leapt to my feet and cheered.

You see, I’m an R.N., and recently I’ve come to the brink of professional hopelessness. I really needed to hear that word “right” coming out of my TV. 

One day, I had a meeting with the administrator to whom I reported (I’ll call him Ernest).

I took a seat in Ernest’s sunny office. Meanwhile, Ernest pulled a chair from behind his desk so as to sit directly in front of me.  The way he leaned forward, the concerned frown that somehow didn’t entirely negate his smile—yes, everything about Ernest’s affect said that he’d be fair, that he’d hear me out.

I didn’t know Ernest that well. He was relatively new to his position. For the most part I’d found him intelligent and pleasant to work with. In recent days I’d been communicating a lot with him—meetings, emails, memos.

In my communications, I’d been saying that we needed to hire at least one additional nursing assistant for the evening shift. I’d been saying that the nursing assistants (most of whom were long-time, valued employees) had been spread too thin.

In his communications, Ernest had always said the same thing: the budget wouldn’t allow for another nursing assistant.  

That day in his office, Ernest allowed me wring my hands and argue passionately on behalf of both the patients and the staff. And when I was finished, he had something new to say: he suggested I resign. 

“There’s no denying you’re a good nurse,” he said, still smiling, with pity now. “But the problem is you’re not suited for this position. You’re too idealistic. You’re working against this team.” 

I saw it clearly then. Ernest had a point. All I had to offer his team was my training, my experience, and my passion for hands-on care. Had the goal been to deliver only excellence in nursing, I’d have been plenty suitable. But the goal was really to provide nursing services, and those services where only as good as they were affordable.

I saw it clearly then. The healthcare workers of America keep striving to take care of people who are sick, or in pain, or vulnerably newborn, or vulnerably old, or dying.  Some healthcare workers—like me—hold fast to the belief that patients have the right to that care. But the truth of the matter is that both the patients and their caregivers are cogs in a system that doesn’t operate on rights.  The system operates on the market. It strives to produce services that sick people can afford to buy.  

I’m thinking of that day in Ernest’s office right now.  And at the same time I’m hearing the hope in my head, over and over: Healthcare is a right. Healthcare is a right. Maybe someday I’ll go back to Ernest’s office, and re-apply. Maybe he’ll be happy to have me back?

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