This victory on abortion has empowered Polish women. We’ll never be the same | Krystyna Kacpura

They call us Nazis and say that we are no better than Hitler because we think a woman should have be able to choose whether she gives birth to a seriously sick child – but we are used to such comparisons. They say these things about us because they are frightened. The government of Poland did not expect such huge protests against its proposed ban on abortion. In the last week, 7 million women were on strike all over Poland to protest against the draconian law and pushed the government to back down.

In Warsaw our protests, involving over 30,000 people, locked the city down. I was trembling at the sight of all these women. I have worked in reproductive rights in Poland for 25 years, and we used to be happy if 200 women attended our protests.

At first politicians ignored us, then they enraged us with their words. The foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, said: “Let them have fun. They should go ahead if they think there are no bigger problems in Poland … We expect serious debate on questions of life, death and birth. We do not expect happenings, dressing in costumes and creating artificial problems.”

These words mobilised even more women. I have never seen such huge protests. Something snapped in Polish women; we are empowered and we won’t stop. The protests were so spontaneous: with barely a few days’ notice thousands of women were walking out of work, and if they couldn’t get the day off, many told me, they said to their bosses they would not return because they could not work alongside people who did not believe in their rights.

Poland signals U-turn on total abortion ban after protests

On Saturday, at one of the protests, I gave a speech to the crowd that was directed at Polish gynaecologists. “Where are you?” I asked. “Why don’t you care about your patients? We need to rely on you, but instead we are afraid of you. We are afraid of your ‘conscientious objections’, we are afraid that you won’t tell us the truth when you are examining us or giving us blood-test results. Break your silence. We are your patients and we need you to support our health.”

Afterwards I received several anonymous messages from gynaecologists telling me that they will help Polish women, promising that they will work in their regions to tell the ruling party the truth about the real threat to women’s health if a ban on abortion was passed. I have been seeking this kind of support for years, there are maybe five or 10 doctors in the whole of Poland who will speak out for women’s rights, so for me this was a personal victory.

Although the Catholic church is seemingly silent in Poland, we know it was the bishops who also rejected the stop abortion law, despite helping to instigate it in the first place. They are threatened, and now they say they “don’t want women to be punished”. Women make up the majority of the people who attend mass, who give money. Many people have left the church lately.

‘In Warsaw our protests, involving over 30,000 people, locked the city down. I have worked in reproductive rights in Poland for 25 years, and we used to be happy if 200 women attended our protests.’ Photograph: Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images

The rejection of the proposed law, which would make all abortions illegal – even in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk, with prison terms of up to five years for women seeking abortion and doctors who perform them – is only a small victory in the ongoing battle for women’s reproductive rights. We are expecting the church and the ruling party to prepare a compromise which would allow abortion when a woman has been raped, or there is a direct threat to her life, but they will seek to withdraw access to legal abortion if the fetus is damaged.

We want women to be free to make a decision on whether she gives birth to a seriously sick child herself. It is her right to choose, and if she does choose to have the child we advocate that she should be supported economically and psychologically, but all women should not be pushed to give birth in such circumstances because the politicians have ruled it so.

Women make up the majority of the people who attend mass, who give money. Many people have left the church lately

At the protests I spoke to many women and girls, young and old, and talked to them about how we are second-class citizens in our country. That the existing law is restrictive on paper, but even more so in practice. We don’t have adequate sex education, we don’t have access to modern contraception and we barely have access to legal abortion. In southern Poland nearly all doctors have signed conscientious objections making access to legal abortion all but impossible.

So our fight must continue. There is such solidarity among Polish women right now that we will take our fight to the European level and find a space to seek protection under EU law. We have international backing, and I have never been so proud of all the empowered, European, Polish women. We will never be the same again.

This victory on abortion has empowered Polish women. We’ll never be the same | Krystyna Kacpura

Empowered and engaged NHS workers will offer far better care

Frontline personnel should really feel valued and supported by management if they are to supply the greatest quality care. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Pictures

It should not be news to any individual operating in healthcare that the way employees truly feel about their workplace has an impact on the high quality of patient care, as properly as on the efficiency and monetary efficiency of an organisation.

This has been driven house by the Boorman review on the significance of health and wellbeing in the NHS. Analysis also demonstrates the link amongst staff satisfaction and mortality prices, that greater personnel fulfillment is linked to higher patient fulfillment, and that workers expertise shapes patients’ encounter, rather than the other way about.

Nevertheless despite these scientific studies, NHS personnel engagement – as measured by a score from the NHS workers survey, which requires account of measures including employees involvement and total task satisfaction – fell for 3 consecutive many years from 2009 before rising slightly in 2012. Only fifty five% of employees would advocate their organisation as a spot to operate.

Functioning in healthcare ought to be rewarding and fascinating, yet all as well typically healthcare specialists feel overworked, disempowered and unappreciated. This is not a unique NHS problem: analysis exhibits it’s a difficulty in healthcare in all the innovative economies throughout the world. According to the Boorman assessment, healthcare workers in the Uk report larger amounts of anxiety and burnout than people in other sectors. In 2013, over a third had reported feeling unwell as the consequence of perform-relevant stress in the previous year. Amongst nurses, the figure was 55%.

Caring for individuals is difficult work. It is specifically challenging in the course of a period of institutional modify this kind of as we are going through now, because this generates uncertainty and anxiety about occupation protection and the potential. Feeling valued, supported and listened to is vital if personnel are to have the mental and emotional stamina required to supply the best-high quality care.

Nevertheless, as the Point of Care Foundation’s report published right now highlights, only one in 3 NHS employees say communication between senior managers and staff is successful. And although 3-quarters of employees say they are capable to make improvement tips, only 26% say senior managers act on them. Nevertheless our analysis demonstrates senior leaders report a far much more good outlook, citing staff engagement as a single of their prime priorities and an mind-boggling self-confidence that workers can increase worries.

This sort of gap between perception and actuality can undermine self-confidence and enthusiasm and engender cynicism. I will not feel it truly is the item of deception or deliberate intent, it is the inevitable outcome of people positioned at distinct levels of the hierarchy possessing distinct experiences and points of see.

Bridging the gap is possible, but it requires deliberate and intentional action on the portion of senior executives to overcome it. It calls for clear communication, trust and acknowledgement of the experiences of others. Our report, has eight situation scientific studies of organisations initiating good practice.

There is not 1 single lever that can be pulled to engage workers. But there are steps board members and managers can take to improve personnel wellbeing and engagement. These contain:

• Articulating values in plain English and showing how they translate into behaviours

• Offering frontline personnel obligation and authority to fix the difficulties they think influence patient care

• Creating time and area for workers to reflect on the emotional challenges in their work with patients. Schwartz Center Rounds sessions, which the foundation supports, are one way of undertaking this.
• Coaching line managers in men and women management skills – like the large amount of clinicians who lead and supervise other staff but don’t see themselves as managers.

These actions are critical, but they are not a substitute for taking a truly strategic method to staff engagement. Great practice in a couple of teams or on a couple of wards is not going to carry about the degree of cultural transformation known as for by the Robert Francis’s inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust. This is why our report calls on the NHS to make supporting personnel a central driver of its techniques to enhance patient care, productivity and financial performance.

Jocelyn Cornwell is the founding director of the Stage of Care Basis

This write-up is published by Guardian Specialist. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to obtain typical emails and unique offers.

Empowered and engaged NHS workers will offer far better care