National Nurses United

RAD_March 2011 6/2/11 3:08 PM Page 11 RoseAnn DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United Moving The Agenda NNU nurses are heroically fighting in the trenches for patient care, and winning B arely a year and a half into the creation of National Nurses United, this spring offered a stirring example of RNs' collective unity and ability to win dramatic improvements for their patients and themselves, even in the midst of a ferocious employer offensive across the nation. In the days leading up to National Nurses Week, thousands of RNs at hospitals in Massachusetts, Maine, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and California issued notice that they were prepared to strike, if necessary, to press the hospitals to improve patient safety as well as to rebuff efforts to reduce health coverage and retirement security for nurses. As the labor magazine Labor Notes wrote, "The strike threats brought chronic hospital understaffing into the limelight, causing administrators to announce they would rather spend tens of millions of dollars on replacement nurses than commit to regularly assigning enough nurses to care for patients adequately." Hospital employers, who long ago jettisoned the façade of community-run service institutions in favor of large, multi-billion dollar corporate chains, have, since the birth of our national nurses movement, wailed long and loud about NNU's "national agenda." What is that agenda? First and foremost, it's NNU members in various states comparing notes and assisting each other to advance the cause of patient advocacy and improved patient care conditions, and to build a national movement to give more clout to all directcare nurses to fight for safer care, a better life, and a more humane healthcare system. It should not be a surprise. When the formation of NNU was announced in 2009, a central founding principle was to "provide a powerful national voice for RN rights, safe RN practice, including RN-to-patient staffing ratios under the principle that safe staffing saves lives." Or as Mary Havlicek Cornacchia, RN at Boston's Tufts Medical Center, told Labor Notes, "What's wrong with patient safety? M AY 2 0 1 1 We're proud of that agenda." The RNs at Tufts, at St. Vincent Hospital in Worchester, Mass., at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine, at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., and at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. in early May demonstrated how effective that program can be for their patients and themselves. The issues varied by hospital, of course, as determined by the nurses in each hospital, but in each case the RNs, unified and determined, broke new ground. Winning at St. Vincent contractually guaranteed RN-to-patient ratios on all medsurg and telemetry units, and the addition of a resource nurse. Winning at Tufts increased staffing and limits on patient assignments, additional charge nurses, and tough restrictions on mandatory overtime. Winning at Washington Hospital meant nurses forming their first ever Professional Practice Committee to push management on safety problems. Winning at Eastern Maine secured restrictions on unsafe assignments and a stronger collective voice on patient care. Winning at Wilkes-Barre meant protection of their union and contract against a large corporate chain determined to roll back their standards. At some hospitals involved in the early May showdowns, the campaigns continue. At Children's Hospital in Oakland, Calif., the RNs are resisting outrageous demands that would limit health coverage for their families, and at Range Regional in Hibbing, Minn., the RNs are challenging a demand that could force them to work when sick, threatening immune-compromised patients. But the message is clear. Through unity, a cohesive national movement, and a fighting spirit, NNU members have a power America's nurses have never seen to challenge head on the profits-first focus of so many of today's corporate hospital employers. And to win. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G With the increased concentration in the healthcare industry, the dominance of large corporate chains from the insurers to the nursing homes to the drug companies to the hospitals, with multi-state, wealthy hospital companies seeking to sharply reduce patient services, care conditions, and nurses' livelihoods and retirement security, the timing could not be more critical. In recent days, we have been asking RNs to send us your accounts of what you are seeing with your patients and your families in the wake of the most brutal economic crisis and employer offensive in decades. Among the many heartbreaking and compelling stories, are ones like this, from a Missouri RN: "After working in healthcare for 38 years, I am seeing the decline of humanity in our healthcare system. In the last two weeks I had a patient who had fallen down a flight of stairs, fractured his left leg, requiring two surgeries just to place screws, rods, and metal traction to attempt to allow bones to begin to mend. The right leg was severely sprained, requiring an immobilizer/cast from thigh down to foot. "This patient was 'too well and too independent' to qualify for a stay in our skilled nursing unit, and was transferred to a nursing home setting.  Did he get to go by ambulance? No, he had to transfer himself to a wheelchair to go by transport service while still requiring IV pain medication.    "I have always felt that compassion was the one thing I could depend on in nursing; unfortunately, often the cost is dictating how much compassion can/will be shown." We've learned it is going to take an enormous effort to transform this callous healthcare system, to assure that all patients get appropriate care, when and where they need it, and that, more than ever, our communities depend on the voice and power of nurses to effect that change. With our growing national nurses movement, we're taking a major step on that path. RoseAnn DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11

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