Linda Kelley, on Nursing a Community

By Bree LeMaire, MS, RN
November 15, 2004

Q: How did you get into nursing?

I’m a third-generation nurse, so nursing is in my blood. My mother is an RN and my grandmother was an LVN. They mostly worked as private duty nurses and, as a child, I remember them working the same cases.

One worked the 12-hour day shift and the other worked the night shift, so an adult was always home with me. My mother was a single parent.

In 1972, when I wanted to enter school, there was a statewide moratorium on nursing school admissions. That’s how I ended up at L.A. City College and it was great because at least a quarter of my class were men coming back from Vietnam. I also served on the state board of the student nurses association of California. In 1974, I was a delegate to the ANA convention, which became my introduction to nursing politics.

I’ve been at Santa Rosa Memorial for 21 years and have been involved with our local union for 20, serving 12 years on the board.

Q: Tell me about your union involvement.

I’m the unit representative for the critical care department. Our union is interesting in that we’re not affiliated with any other unions. We are in a coalition with other nonaffiliated unions like Stanford.

I had never worked in a hospital with a union before coming to Santa Rosa Memorial.

Q: Do you use an acuity system in your work?

We have 2-to-1 staffing as mandated by Title 22. We just revised our 1-to-1 staffing criteria based on acuity and we are working on a more formalized system. We want to have a research-based acuity system.

Staffing ratios that are in place help our nursing retention.

We also have a point-based clinical ladder system that’s really great. Clinical ladder systems are relatively rare. If a nurse is going to school, volunteering in the community, serving on a hospital committee, or is cross-trained to other departments, they get a point. This translates into a higher salary and has substantially increased participation in the clinical ladder system.

Q: Why work as a staff nurse when you have your NP?

I like bedside nursing very much. I like the focus I can give. When I got my NP license, managed care was coming to the forefront and that was not appealing to me. In the future, I’ll probably work as an NP. My interest is in family planning, but for now I’m happy to be where I am. It’s not that unusual to have an NP doing bedside nursing.

I like the atmosphere and the support. Here, I have a lot of autonomy and a collegial relationship with the physicians.

Q: Why did you decide to run for mayor?

I moved to Sebastopol six years ago and was very concerned about the lack of affordable housing, especially when I couldn’t find a place for myself.

I tried to get on the Sebastopol planning commission and, after two years, was appointed to the commission. I see affordable housing as a public health issue. It’s all part of community health care.

Q: What are you doing now about affordable housing?

In the last few years, I have been able to put through a couple of housing policies. One is an inclusionary ordinance requirement.

It says that any subdivision with more than five houses must have 20% affordable housing built and maintained within that subdivision for 59 years. We had a huge development company come to us with a plan that will increase our population by 5%.

We’re still working on the environmental impact report and it will be under our new affordable housing ordinance. I’m a smart-growth advocate and believe we can build affordable housing while still honoring the environment.

Q: Anything to add?

Sonoma State University’s nursing school’s community focus was my training in public health. I feel like I’m nursing a community. Nursing is the best employment I could ever imagine.

Over these last 30 years, nursing has changed and allowed me to fully participate with the changes.