TAMPA (WFLA/CNN) – A Washington state lawmaker is apologizing for the comment she made that nurses play cards for much of their day.
Senator Maureen Walsh made the remark as lawmakers discussed a bill to provide nurses uninterrupted meal and rest periods.
Since then, Walsh’s office has received 27,000 angry calls and about the same amount of emails.
“Just not the nicest language. I’ve been called some pretty horrible things and my kids have been ‘gee I hope you never need and nurse and I hope you die,’ just threatening things like that,” Walsh said. “Do I regret saying ‘the cards?’ you bet I do. And by the way I’ve got many many hundreds of decks of cards that have been kindly sent to my office.”
Walsh says hundreds of decks of cards have also been sent to her office.
An online petition drive was started asking the senator to go along with a nurse on a 12-hour shift with well over a half million people have signed. “I love my nurses. I’d be happy to come and work in a hospital with them for a while and shadow them and see their job… In the heat of a moment. In the exhaustion of the session, I made a comment that I sincerely regret.”
Even though Walsh apologizes for the cards statement, she still believes lunches and breaks should be up to the hospitals not state government.
