Health Care Professionals Vigil for Peace and Witness Against War; an ongoing weekly Friday vigil.



University of Illinois at Chicago nurses and health care professionals have invited Chicagoans to join them in a weekly "Vigil for Peace, Witness Against War" in front of the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center at 820 South Damen Avenue from 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. each Friday.

If you believe war is a public health emergency, that soldiers and veterans need our support and that peaceful protest is essential, please join the vigil. Planners will hold regular Friday evening vigils, holding candles and banners in front of medical centers, and to encourage health care professionals throughout the Chicagoland area to develop similar public action.

In an op-ed entitled "A nurse wonders: What if we united to oppose war?" published on Sunday, November 7, 2004, in the Chicago Tribune, UIC Nursing School professor Dr. Gerry Gorman pondered her own son's future and imagined what would happen if all members of her highly trained profession pushed together for peace. After receiving numerous responses to the essay, she and several colleagues decided to welcome sympathizers to a peaceful protest against U.S. warmaking. "We are mandated to teach our students a primer on 'bio-preparedness,'" Gorman wrote. "But, we shy away from the disastrous health consequences of depleted uranium and assault weapons... What if we said we will not practice our healing art so that our children can be bandaged and sent back to battle to be killed or to kill the children of other mothers on the other side of the world."

For more information...
Contact: Gerry Gorman, R.N., Ph.D.
312-413-9013
or Call the Voices in the Wilderness office at 773-784-8065