It’s National Public Health Week (or should it be year?)
The national theme for Public Health Week 2021 is “Building Bridges to Better Health,” a recognition that making communities safe and healthy is public health’s top priority and that COVID-19 has made that even more important.
Our public health nurses have run testing sites and vaccination sites. You have gotten the word out on safety measures like social distancing and masking. At the same time, you have continued the important services you provide for all clients and communities, whether it is caring for inmates in detention facilities, visiting with pregnant women and children, working with the homeless, or tracing contacts of infectious people.
WSNA honors each and every public health nurse. You have been our rock during this difficult year.
Our sincere hope is that this pandemic has made the need for and value of public health so obvious that the state will finally provide the kind of stable funding we need to serve the public.
Support Public Health Funding
Both the Washington State Senate and House of Representatives included significant new funding for Foundational Health Services in their budgets. We are urging the legislature to include new and ongoing investments in Foundational Public Health Services in the final budget, at the $150 million level that was included in the Senate budget. You can read our letter to Senate and House budget writers here.
During this Public Health Week, please email your legislators and make a direct ask, as their constituent, for $150 million in Foundational Public Health Services funding in the final budget. You can email them here – it takes less than 2 minutes.