We thought you’d like to hear how patients in Minnesota reacted to the largest-ever strike.According to the Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, (Twin Cities nurses strike stays calm, but pressure on by JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY and CHEN MAY YEE, Jun 11, 2010), the day long strike was an opportunity to show their numbers and passion for patient safety showing up to picket in the damp and wind.As for the patients, according to the newspaper, “Outside United Hospital in St. Paul, a pregnant woman wearing a patient’s robe walked from the hospital to the picket line, spoke with some of the nurses, picked up a picket sign and went back inside.”At another hospital, a woman living near North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, offered her bathroom to the striking nurses. A friend of Colleen Patterson, a patient recently discharged after a reported 25-day stay.”Patterson, wearing a baseball cap to cover the surgical scar on her head, sat in the back yard of the house, hugging nurses who showed up.”"I hundred percent support the nurses,” she said. “They’re angels in disguise. Everything they’re asking for they’re absolutely entitled to,” reported the Star Tribune. READ MORE

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Casey and Dan visit with Texas RN Monica Sanchez about the union vote that recently occurred in Texas and made history as the first of its kind. Texas RNs in five cities voted to join National Nurses United. They will now join thousands of other bedside nurses across the country who are fighting for patient rights and better conditions for RNs. Read more…