my last raise was 65 cents

My last raise was $.65.  I work in an inner city emergency room where I deal with all the people you move to the suburbs to avoid: the junkies, drunks, criminals, hood rats, the mentally ill, the homeless.. Every day I deal with the chronically ill, the neurotic.  I move patients who can be up to 500 lbs.  I am verbally abused, physically abused.  There isn't a day I go home that I am not physically and mentally exhausted.

My job is constantly changing.  New things, machines, procedures, policies, information every day.  I sometimes hold peoples lives in my hands. Literally.  If I make a mistake, you could die. I have to remain calm under tremendous stress.  I have to be ready to deal with someone running in carrying someone who has been shot, someone who is going to have a baby, someone who is dying. I have to juggle lots and lots of things at once.

And now I am faced with ebola.  A disease that could kill you.  It has already killed more than 200 health care workers in Africa.It has infected 2 nurses in Dallas.  I depend on government officials, hospital administrators to have my best interest at heart when it comes to something like this. So far they haven't looked very good.

You are probably scared about ebola.  Will it affect me?  My family?  What's going to happen? Its all so confusing.  Imagine what nurses feel like.  We don't have a choice about caring for anybody who comes through the hospital door.  There they are.  We will have to have to care for them.

These days as  nurse, you can literally be taking my life in my hands taking care of a patient.  I could even die. It could infect my family.

My last raise was $.65.  My next raise will be about $.45.  I wonder if the CEO of the corporation I work for still makes a couple of million dollars.  I wonder if the administrators and managers still make bonuses when they meet corporate goals. They probably do.

They push paper in a safe comfortable office. . I sit at the triage window hoping the next patient doesn't have ebola.