National Nurses United

RAD:July LH 9/2/09 3:18 PM Page 10 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, CNA/NNOC Single-Payer Pearls Before Swine How the national healthcare debate is missing the connection between expanding Medicare for all and a strong defense against H1N1 if there are two ships passing in the night, it might be the increasingly dysfunctional debate over national healthcare re form and the storm brewing with the spreading swine flu pandemic. Listening to the healthcare discourse, you'd think the central problem is making sure we don't have science-fiction style death panels sacrificing our grandparents. And how to keep government out of our healthcare (including government-funded Medicare and government-run veterans care), leaving it firmly in the hands of the insurance giants who have done such a bangup job of denying care and driving families to bankruptcy for unpayable medical bills. All too often missing from the discussion is the very real story of the patients harmed by the present system, or the very real inability of our fractured and tattered public safety net to adequately respond in the likely event of the arrival of the next dangerous super bug. One such bug is, of course, already on the scene. The H1N1 virus has, by late August, shown up in at least 168 countries with more than 162,000 confirmed cases. More than 1,100 have died, including 436 in the United States—among them Karen Ann Hays, RN of Sacramento, a CNA/NNOC member. The U.S. numbers are, notably, piling up in summer, a time when flu cases are supposedly rare. Yet swine flu has been sweeping through summer camps and hospitals to the degree that many health departments have stopped counting cases, only recording the hospitalizations and deaths. Normal winter flu seasons produce on average 200,000 cases and 36,000 deaths. Expect this one to be worse. "It's fair to say there will be tens of millions of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of deaths," said Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of 10 REGISTERED NURSE Public Health who has been helping the Cen- and SARS. Other super bugs will surely follow. ters for Disease Control project the severity of Preparing for swine flu containment is also the way to protect our families for the future. the upcoming winter wave. Today, making sure that there are adequate RNs will be the frontline of defense, and the early warning signs are not good. After 10 RNs numbers of nurses at the bedside, not home were infected with the virus at Sutter Solano sick with the flu or worse, bolstering our public Medical Center in Vallejo, Calif., we began sur- safety net, and promoting a universal, national veying hospitals to assess how prepared hospi- healthcare system, based on public health, not private profit, are essential precursors to protals are to protect nurses and patients. Our survey results documented widespread tecting the public. In a year in which healthcare has been the problems. At 18 percent of the hospitals, RNs report that nurses have become infected. At dominant domestic issue for months, you'd more than one-fourth of the hospitals, nurses expect preparing for swine flu or any other cited inadequate isolation of swine flu patients. epidemic would be front and center in the At 15 percent of hospitals, nurses do not have national healthcare debate. You'd be wrong. An Aug. 8 article in access to the proper N95 respirator masks, and the National Journal at up to 40 percent of has been one of the the hospitals, nurses rare media to conare expected to reuse nect the two. masks in violation of In a year in which If more people Centers for Disease healthcare has been the are covered, more Control guidelines. dominant domestic issue people would re There's plenty of for months, you'd expect ceive primary care cause for concern. preparing for swine flu rather than waiting The General Accountor any other epidemic until they end up in ing Office told Conwould be front and an emergency room, gress in early August center in the national the Journal noted, that federal agencies healthcare debate. adding "fewer peohad not followed half You'd be wrong. ple would be likely of the recommento delay treatment. dations it had made The result . . . is au weeks earlier, and in the event of a severe outbreak, warned the sys- thorities could better monitor the flu and tem would stagger under inadequate numbers hospitals would face less of a strain at a time when they would need all the resources they of beds and medical supplies. Failure to protect nurses and other front- could muster." Real reform, such as single-payer/Mediline healthcare employees will make that care for all, would better enable the nation to problem far worse. In a November 2005 Registered Nurse arti- prepare and respond to swine flu and the other cle, authors Carl Bloice and Conn Hallinan super bugs to follow. It's just one of many areas brought back the chilling memories of the 1918- in which the White House and Congress have 1919 flu pandemic that killed 675,000 Ameri- failed to make the case. And once again, it's up cans, and noted that one of the greatest lessons to RNs to help lead the way. ■ to researchers was that a stronger nursing infrastructure would have saved many lives. Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of Before we had swine flu, there was avian flu, CNA/NNOC. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 0 9

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