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1,000 Nurses to Rally, Lobby for Safer Patient Care on Capitol Hill
Nearly 1,000 members of National Nurses United (NNU) are in Washington, D.C., today and tomorrow, where they are meeting with their lawmakers in support of legislation that combats the nursing shortage and makes patient care safer. They are calling for a more ambitious overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
As part of NNU’s legislative conference, nurses will march and rally on Capitol Hill tomorrow before talking with their representatives and senators.
This morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the nurses that members of Congress need to hear what it’s really like at Ground Zero in health care.
…our elected representatives can hear right from you about what working families need most today. Not from the big-money K Street lobbyists. Not from the Chamber of Commerce mouthpieces. Not from the hospital CEOs or industry suits. Right from heroes like you.
When you speak, they listen and they learn why safe staffing levels matter, why universal, single-payer health care matters, why it matters for every worker, every nurse to have the freedom to bargain collectively.
The nurses are backing S. 1031, the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act. Introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill would establish a federal standard for a nurse-to-patient ratio at hospitals nationwide. The bill is modeled after a California state law that set minimum ratios there.
Last month, a University of Pennsylvania study found that there would have been nearly 14 percent fewer surgical deaths in New Jersey and more than 10 percent fewer surgical deaths in Pennsylvania in 2006 if hospitals in these states had followed the California model.
As Jean Ross, one of NNU’s three co-presidents, told The Hill newspaper:
[The California law] has done just what we said it would do. More nurses come into the profession, more nurses stay in the profession and hundreds of thousands of patients’ lives can be saved.
NNU Co-President Karen Higgins adds:
Improving the quality of care is a central component of the unfinished business of health care reform. Fortunately nurses have the solution—common sense, comprehensive legislative repairs for our health care system that will protect patients.
U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is scheduled to speak, along with Boxer and several other members of Congress.
The conference coincides with National Nurses Week, which centers around the May 12 anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, often considered the founder of modern nursing.
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5 Comments
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When will the AFL-CIO move into struggle well beyond the stale political tactic of tailing after the democrats and with the underlying and anti-democratic bureaucratic presumption that organizing should lead (as if ‘naturally’) to no more than ‘lobby days’ and getting out the vote for the Democrats? Just a rhetorical question, because I’m sure they won’t do so, at least not in a massive way, unless and until the bureaucrats are dragged into it by determined militancy and organized demands from the ranks and in the face of growing assaults by the bosses, and even then, not without a workers party to provide a real, truly representative and accountable political alternative to the Demopublicans and by means of a worker-democratic methodology of struggle.
It is militant action, like the Temple Nurses’ strike, that forces reform, achieves improvements in conditions and workplaces, builds confidence in independent political action of healthcare workers, and that is on the frontline of real reform of the healthcare system. The AFL-CIO has taken notice of the Temple Nurses strike victory, and certainly so has the NNU. So, maybe the effectiveness of militant struggle is beginning to sink in. We can foster militant consciousness by further publicizing the gains made by the Temple Nurses, and by intervening to help build and support militant, broad community-based healthcare worker fightbacks.
there is no thing as safer patient care with obama care. obamacare will be a big blunder
MORE FORCED OVERTIME TONIGHT: HOSPITAL VERSION
THE LIVES of us nurses ARE’NT EASY,
WE WORK THROUGH THE DAY AND THE NIGHT.
ONE EMERGENCY AFTER ANOTHER
THIS KIND OF CARE IS’NT RIGHT.
HOSPITAL WORK IS BAD FOR THE FAMILY,
WE DON’T MAKE IT HOME EVERY NIGHT.
ADMINISTRATORS SAY, “LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT”
WHILE THEIR PROFITS GROW WAY OUT OF SIGHT,
BUT WORST OF ALL I’M TELLING YOU
WE CANT GO HOME WHEN SHIFT IS THROUGH
BECAUSE THERE’S:
CHORUS
MORE FORCED OVERTIME TONIGHT
I HOPE THAT I’LL BE HOME BEFORE IT’S LIGHT
OH MY FAMILY IS A GRIEVIN
AND THEIR EVEN TALKIN LEAVIN,
BUT THERE’S MORE FORCED OVERTIME TONIGHT.
DAY AFTER DAY WITH NO TIME OFF,
BEGINS TO TAKE Its TOLL,
IF YOUR TIRED YOU JUST BETTER BE THERE,
CAUSE THE BOSSES SAY ABSENCE CONTROL.
IT’S CHEAPER TO FORCE US ALL O.T.
WHILE THE JOBLESS CONTINUE TO GROW
AND PATIENTS CONTINUES TO SUFFER
WHILE THE HOSPITAL RAKES IN MORE DOUGH
TWELVE HOUR DAYS OR EVEN MORE
WHAT THE HELL WE LIVIN FOR?
CHORUS
WE CAN’T CONTINUE TO TAKE IT
IT IS TIME TO FIGHT WHERE WE STAND
FORCED OVERTIME IS JUST SLAVERY
LET’S CHANGE THE LAWS OF THE LAND.
THE CHAINS OF OUR SLAVERY ARE WAGES
THERE REASON FOR FORCING IS GREED
WHEN ALL OF THE FAMILY IS WORKING
MORE TIME OFF THE JOBS WHAT WE NEED
LET’S ALL WORK FOR A SHORTER DAY
AND NEVER MORE WELL HAVE TO SAY
CHORUS
PLEASE SEE IF THE NURSES WANT TO USE THIS. THEY CAN E-MAIL ME OR CALL AT 650-355-8102 I do have the melody on a cd. I AM ALWAYS READY TO HELP A SISTER OR BROTHER IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT.
Dave Hurlburt
Go nurses! We need to make it known that our services are valuable and that we have a very critical shortage. Few people want to do hospital nursing because it is not a 9 to 5 job with weekends and holidays off. Worked for over 20 years, mostly ED and either nights or evenings. Hope there are nurses available when I need help.
My Wife is and has been a CCRN for 35 years! I am a Retired
Union Rep and C. Chef! We love the fact that the March in Washington is good. However, this may open the Flood Gates
for “Nurses” and more “Nurse Assistants, Personal Care Assistants,
or Orientees!” from China, India, Philippine Islands and do not
forget Mexico! OOPS, I forgot, they are already here with all Families!
Thus begins the continuing fight about “beginner, apprentice, need more training,” wages!
We believe in our American Way and the fact that Legal, go Thru
The Proper Way, and Road to Citizenship as prescribed in the Law~! God Bless Everyone!