Backus Hopital nurse
to be Courtney’s guest at State of the Union address.
Sherri Dayton, a registered nurse at the Backus Hospital in Norwich and president of the Backus Federation of Nurses, will be the guest of honor of U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, at President Joe Biden’s virtual State of the Union address on Wednesday, Courtney announced.
“No one has worked harder to support our communities through the last fourteen months than our (front-line) health care workers, and Sherri and her colleagues at Backus Hospital aren’t letting up — she’ll be working with patients tomorrow all the way up until kick-off time, and we’re just grateful for this small chance to say ‘thank you’,” Courtney said in a statement Tuesday. “As if serving our local communities during the pandemic wasn’t enough, Sherri is also a profoundly strong advocate for taking action to protect her fellow nurses against rising rates of workplace violence. She’s been a driving force behind this year’s bipartisan passage of our bill to protect health care and social service workers against on-the-job violence, and I look forward to hosting her for tomorrow night’s address while we keep working together to turn our bipartisan bill into law this Congress.”
“Our entire team of nurses and health care professionals represented by AFT Connecticut have worked hard to support our patients and each other since the (coronavirus) pandemic began,” Dayton said in a statement. “It’s not over yet, we’re still battling each day to keep the infection rate down, but I’m proud every day of the talent and determination our professionals bring to Emergency Room on behalf of our communities.”
Dayton earlier this month spoke at a news conference in support of Courtney’s Workplace Violence Prevention bill, which passed the House with bipartisan support, and said workplace violence affects about 95% of the ER professionals she works with and it has become more of an issue during the pandemic.
Dayton said in the statement that she hopes that Biden will sign the bill into law, which will “help protect our team of nurses and so many others from workplace violence while we’re working to protect our patients.”