Nurse added to Biden-Harris Covid-19 task force
In late November 2020, the Biden-Harris transition team added a nurse to its Covid advisory board, after campaigns by the Truth About Nursing and others. She is Jane Hopkins, a Seattle union leader originally from Sierra Leone who practiced for many years as a mental health nurse. We thank the transition team and urge them to add more nurses!
December 3, 2020 — On November 28, the Biden-Harris transition team added three members to its 12-person Covid-19 task force, including Seattle nurse Jane Hopkins, RNMH. Originally from Sierra Leone and educated in the U.K., Hopkins practiced for more than 20 years as a mental health nurse before joining the Service Employees International Union, where she is now an executive vice president at Local 1199NW in Washington State. She also reportedly serves on Washington State’s Covid task force. The Truth and others have undertaken advocacy campaigns to persuade the transition team to add nurses to the physician-heavy task force. And we thank the transition for adding Hopkins, who should be a strong voice for direct care nurses and others affected by the Covid-19 crisis, as a short interview she gave today to Seattle NBC affiliate KING 5 indicates. In that interview, Hopkins said she would advocate for the full range of essential health care workers as well as marginalized communities. While we celebrate this progress, the Truth is urging that more nurses be added to the task force to provide the diverse expertise that nurses have, as we noted in our campaign, in areas like infection control; occupational health; rural health; palliative care; pain management; school nursing; vaccine hesitancy and health literacy; and ethical issues in the allocation of health resources. We are continuing discussions with our contact on the current task force and will send updates!
Send the Covid Advisory Board your thoughts
In the meantime, please click here to send us your ideas — either in writing or with a short video (we reserve the right to edit)–for what you think the Covid advisory board needs to know from nurses and we will bring those concerns to our contact on the panel. Thank you!
