This is National Nurses Week and National Nurses United (NNU) is sending out “a simple THANK YOU” to the nation’s 3.1 million registered nurses because:

Your work is not easy. You must have compassion and endurance to be there in the middle of the night, when your patient is struggling with pain. You must have patience and courage to fight that bureaucratic red tape that’s delaying your patient’s medications from the hospital pharmacy. You must have the composure, medical knowledge and technical skill to insert that central line into the distressed ER patient who needs medication. You must have an endless supply of “knock knock” jokes to comfort that frightened child.

But the best “Thank You” for nurses is the respect they deserve, including safe staffing ratio laws and a health care system based on need—not the size of a person’s wallet—and a health care system where nurses can care for patients to their best and highest potential.

You can thank a nurse by joining thousands of nurses and their supporters on the streets of Chicago on May 18 as they march to call for a tax on Wall Street to fund Main Street. You also can click here to go to the Friend a Nurse Facebook page and download the Gift a Nurse app.

You also can listen and share a musical tribute to nurses by clicking here to down load “Angel at My Side,” by Colette Washington, a singer/songwriter and NNU communications specialist.