Hospitals

Nurse’s union takes to Occupy Chicago for propaganda — or, ‘first aid’

The Occupy Wall Street protests continued in Chicago and the nurses unions are dispensing a new form of “first aid:” Outraged by the arrest of two nurses and a union organizer volunteering at the Occupy Chicago protest over the weekend, National Nurses United is planning a protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office Monday. The group, […]

The Occupy Wall Street protests continued in Chicago and the nurses unions are dispensing a new form of “first aid:”

Outraged by the arrest of two nurses and a union organizer volunteering at the Occupy Chicago protest over the weekend, National Nurses United is planning a protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office Monday.

The group, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, is calling on its membership in Chicago to picket City Hall on Monday morning to demand that misdemeanor trespassing charges against the nurses and all of the protesters be dropped.

The two nurses arrested were among a larger group marching with Occupy Chicago protesters and later set up a tent to provide first aid.

“It was the wrong move,” RoseAnn DeMoro, the group’s executive director, said Sunday. “We were there to make sure if the occupiers get harmed, they have first aid.”

But pictures from the event in Chicago and elsewhere where the group was protesting suggests another more subliminal story line. In this picture the Twitter stream from the National Nurses United union, the police appeared restrained and tolerant of the protestors:

So what kind of “first aid” was being rendered in their tent?

Here are a few pictures from the same group’s “first aid” tent in San Francisco taken from the same Twitter feed:

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Hmmm. Were there donuts were in those boxes?

Shucks. Maybe not:

Well, no donuts, but there sure was plenty of splashy red nurses union propaganda available for sympathetic protestors to consume as “first aid.”

The author, Dr. Westby G. Fisher, is a cardiologist at NorthShore University HealthSystem who writes regularly at Dr. Wes.

Westby G. Fisher, MD, FACC is a board certified internist, cardiologist, and cardiac electrophysiologist (doctor specializing in heart rhythm disorders) practicing at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, IL, USA and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. He entered the blog-o-sphere in November, 2005. He writes regularly at Dr. Wes. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this blog are strictly the those of the author(s) and should not be construed as the opinion(s) or policy(ies) of NorthShore University HealthSystem, nor recommendations for your care or anyone else's. Please seek professional guidance instead.