Humans of UNAC/UHCP: Nicole Wooten, RN
“Nurses go home exhausted because we have too many patients to take care of. The shifts are long, the pace never slows, and there’s always one more call light, one more chart, one more medication to give. You move from room to room like you’re on a timer—because you are.
“And then, when you finally get to leave, you think about the faces you saw that day—the people you wanted to help more but couldn’t. The patient who was scared and needed someone to sit with them, but you had five other rooms to check. The one who wanted to tell you a story, but you were already halfway out the door to handle something urgent.
“When you drive home, you think, I could have done better, but I just didn’t have the time. And that doesn’t feel good. It’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we care so much that it hurts when we can’t give our best.
“Too many patients means you’re constantly prioritizing: Who needs help most right now, who can wait another five minutes, even if they’re uncomfortable or lonely. That’s not how we want to practice nursing. We want to give every patient time, attention, and compassion, not just the bare minimum to survive the shift.
“We go home with tired feet and heavy hearts. We try to rest, but the moments we couldn’t get to—the conversations we cut short, the comfort we couldn’t give—stay with us. Nursing is supposed to be about care. But when there aren’t enough of us, it turns into survival for the patients and for the nurses. And that’s not fair to anyone.
“This fight for a strong contract is personal for me. I grew up on the picket line. Back in the 1980s, my dad worked at Brown & Sharpe in Rhode Island, and he was part of what’s considered the longest industrial strike in U.S. history. I was just a kid, but I remember standing out there every day with him. He was a picket captain, and he never gave up. That shaped me.
“So when the chance came to step up and be a union advocate, I knew it was my time. When I told my dad, he cried. He said, ‘Now it’s your turn.’
“And that’s why I’m here. Because the work we do matters. Because our patients deserve the best care we can give. And because I believe every nurse, every caregiver, has a calling—to stand up for what is right and what is needed.”
—Nicole Wooten, RN, is a member of the 2025 UNAC/UHCP bargaining team for Blue Nation, which covers registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California region.