Please Don't Call Me a Hero. Here Are 7 Ways You Can Show Gratitude Instead

Please don’t call me a hero! Photographed by James Moyer on Eno, Shakori and Saponi land.

Currently I am one of the frontline workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. I work in an emergency department and come into contact with COVID-19 patients frequently. I have received more “thank you”s and praise during this time than I ever have during my nursing career. 

I have been a nurse for four and half years and I have been witness to many tragic events. I signed up to take care of people with all types of injuries, illnesses and chronic conditions, including poverty and homelessness. Not once did I ever think, with the current advancements in medicine, science and biotechnology, that I would be working during a pandemic. But here I am. 

Although these “thank you”s are nice, I am asking for something more profound. I am asking for society to show gratitude in a more tangible way. So, please do not call me a hero; here are seven things you can do instead. 

Step One: Contact your local hospitals 

Call and write to your local hospitals, nursing homes, mental health facilities and EMS (Emergency Medical Service) agencies, asking them to provide better PPE for their frontline staff AND pay them Hazard Pay. The Healthcare Industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and individual hospitals churn out millions of dollars in profits annually. Frontline staff deserve better protection and higher pay AND healthcare facilities can do it WITHOUT furloughing staff.

Call your county and ask them how they are compensating their EMS workers, who are the most exposed group of people to Covid-19 and are some of the least compensated workers in the healthcare field. Ask your county what tangible things can be done to help them. We are doing our jobs and we are doing it with LIMITED PPE. Everyday we go to work with fear for our health and the health of our families. We deserve to be protected when we go to work and we deserve compensation for risks we are taking to care for the community. 

Step Two: Contact Congress

Call and write your congressional representatives and ask for them to support The HEROES Act (H.R.6800) and the Student Loan Forgiveness for Frontline Healthcare Workers Act (H.R.6720). The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimates that the median medical school debt was $196,250 for 2018 graduates. Most of these graduates enter their residency making only around $50,000 a year. Medical residencies can last anywhere between 3-7 years, not including speciality fellowships, during which young doctors work countless hours while barely making a living wage for themselves and their families.

The burden of student loan debt doesn’t only affect doctors but nurses and other healthcare professionals as well. The average nursing student loan debt is $47,000. Demand that our government use its money to help the people who are putting their lives at risk to save others, instead of bailing out banks with 1.5 trillion dollars or the airline industry with 500 billion dollars. 

Step Three: Support Medicare for All

Ask your local and state government to support MEDICARE FOR ALL. I work in a hospital where people who are able to afford million dollar heart and lung transplants get to stay in the newest Intensive Care Unit with the most beautiful views of the city but where those who are uninsured or underinsured don’t have the same access to life saving operations. Have you ever had to send a patient with advanced heart failure home to die because he lacked the insurance to pay for a lifesaving operation or a caregiver to help him recover? I have.

“Fight against systemic racism of all forms because systemic racism is a public health crisis”

With Medicare for All, EVERYONE would have access to affordable health insurance. In my line of work, I’ve seen the non-insured and underinsured come to the Emergency Room because it is their only access to medical care. Medicare for All would mean better care and reduction of chronic preventable illnesses. With Medicare for All, hospital physicians and nurses would not have to bear the burden of people who the current for-profit healthcare system has abandoned.

We could shift our healthcare system from one that reacts to preventable diseases to one that prevents preventable diseases. And while people continue to die every day because of chronic diseases that could have been managed with adequate health insurance and access to primary care providers, the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan Daniel Leopp made 19 million dollars in the year 2018 alone. Think about that.

Step Four: Urge state officials to increase funding for state run mental health facilities 

Ask your state government to provide more funding to mental health facilities. The coronavirus crisis has also exacerbated our current mental health crisis. I have seen adults and children spend weeks inside the Emergency Department before a psychiatric facility has space to admit them. We need more people to demand better mental healthcare from the state, and, by doing so you can help frontline workers achieve the best outcome for their mental health patients: meaningful and rehabilitative care. 

Step Five: Fight against systemic racism 

Fight against systemic racism of all forms because SYSTEMIC RACISM IS A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS.  Black and brown people will continue to die from the complications of preventable diseases such as asthma, diabetes, heart failure, hypertension because black and brown people continue to exist in the margins of society. If you want to show your appreciation to nurses and doctors, help fight against the systems that keep black and brown people in poverty, in our prison systems, vulnerable to the effects of environmental racism and the victims of violence.

Fight against the systems that perpetuate trauma against black and brown bodies and exploit that trauma for viewers. Fight the systems in place that makes a hospital in non-white communities overwhelmingly staffed by white nurses and doctors, while black and brown women labor as nurse assistants, housekeepers, cafeteria workers, and phlebotomists. Why is it that the people who spend the most time with patients in the hospital, do not represent the diversity of the patients that come into the hospital? We need to ask ourselves these questions and fight for solutions. 

Step Six: Stay home

STAY AT HOME as much as you can. The best way to show gratitude to frontline workers is to help prevent the spread of COVID- 19. Stay at home as much as you can and when you do go outside make sure to wear something to cover both your mouth AND NOSE. We understand that many folks do not have access to face masks, so just cover your face with a bandana or an old t-shirt—anything to keep your droplets from spreading. I also understand people may not have the privilege of getting their groceries delivered. I simply ask that you wear a face covering and wash your hands when you are out in the community.

Limit travel to wherever you can go on a single tank of gas. By staying local you can help prevent the spread of Covid-19 to areas that might have not have the same level of resources to handle community transmission, or a spike in the number of cases. By staying at home, wearing a face mask, washing your hands, physically distancing yourself by at least 6 feet from other people and not being in groups of more than 5 people you can help stop the spread of this disease. The fewer cases means fewer frontline workers at risk. Instead of calling us heroes, help keep us safe by doing the right thing. 

Step Seven: Show gratitude 

Understand that healthcare workers HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE HEROES, pandemic or not. In my past four and a half years I have had the honor of saving more lives than I can count. If you are sick or injured, it is a team of nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, physician assistants, nurse assistants, nurse practitioners, EMTs and many more people who work diligently to keep you alive.

If you are too frail to move your own body, it is the nurse and nurse assistant who will help you get comfortable. If you are decompensating in the hospital, it is the nurse that rushes to tell the doctor that something needs to be done to save your life. And if you are approaching the end of your life, it is the nurse who is there to care for you and comfort your loved ones as you transition from this world.

I have had the joy of holding babies in my arms, singing to the elderly and drawing flowers on my patient’s wound dressings. I have seen people who were predicted to never be neurologically intact, rehabilitate and walk off my hospital floor. I am a nurse and I do all these things, while simultaneously caring for multiple other patients, during a 12 hour shift. 

If you want to show us REAL gratitude, remember all that we do the next time you or a loved one goes to the hospital. Let that gratitude extend even when your hospital stay may not be going 100% the way you wish it would. Remember that even when death is at humanity’s door, it is healthcare workers who will continue to save lives. We don’t need you to call us heroes, we need you to understand. 

Being a nurse and having touched so many lives has been one of the greatest honors of my life. Thank you for reading.