Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/198087
NewsBriefs.2:Sept 9/30/08 1:38 PM Page 12 WRAP-UP REPORT CALIFORNIA nurses with good samaritan Hospital and Regional Medical Center in San Jose, Calif. joined with community healthcare advocates on Sept. 4 to expose Hospital Corporation of America's efforts to have almost $500,000 in property taxes refunded by Santa Clara County. HCA, the largest hospital corporation in the United States and owner of Good Samaritan and Regional, is appealing its property tax assessment at a time when its 2007 revenues rang in at $26 billion, 2.5 times that of its nearest competitor. HCA is also lobbying to demolish San Jose Medical Center, the downtown hospital it bought and closed in 2004 despite promises it would not do so, leaving San Jose, the third-largest city in California and the tenth-largest nationwide, without a downtown hospital. The closure has burdened every other area hospital and its emergency and acute-care nursing staff with the overflow of patients who would normally access care at the closed facility. Santa Clara County residents are now also being asked to pick up HCA's slack: they will vote on a November bond measure that would provide the county with $50 million to directly fund downtown medical services and retrofit the county-owned Valley Medical Center. MAINE beating back takeaways by engaging the community and speaking out in public about their working conditions, registered nurses at Millinocket Regional Hospital settled their latest contract in late August, winning important provisions to improve patients care and help retain and recruit more RNs. Nurses won 7 to 10 percent wage increases the first year with 3.5 percent (plus steps) over the next three years of the contract, increased differentials, the formation of an all-RN professional practice committee (PPC) with the power to influence staffing and other practice issues, prohibitions against technology that degrades or removes RN judgment in nursing practice, patient needs staffing language, and standards of competent performance. Up until the last bargaining sessions, management had been proposing cuts in the accrual of nurses' earned time, the elimination of nurses' paid meal breaks, and higher salaries for newly hired RNs but not longterm RNs. For the first time ever, MRH nurses spoke up at a press conference in front of the hospital in response to these takeaways. After the press conference and a hospital board of directors meeting where the community supported the RNs, the takeaways came off the table. In news at other facilities, the Houlton Regional Hospital PPC was responsible for the immediate addition of three RN positions in the emergency department. And at Eastern Maine Medical Center, the PPC is seeking to improve the orientation process, safe patient handling policies, and moving some units to a 1:4 nurse-to-patient ratio. In legislative news, the MSNA Legislative Committee has made endorsements of state and federal Candidates in races where the candidate is solidly in favor of ratios and single-payer healthcare. Two nurse leaders are running for office: Ann Perry, RN is running for her second term for the Maine House and is a member at CRH as well as a member of the bargaining team. Michael Hiltz, RN, is a CNA/NNOC member working at a rehab hospital in Portland who is also running for a Maine House seat. —staff report Texas RNs visit with Congressman Lloyd Doggett to discuss registered nurses' issues. 12 REGISTERED NURSE W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G cuts to federal funding had jeopardized the finances of the program and, as a result, the county. While public health services across the nation are struggling within the nation's disintegrating healthcare "system," Chicago's situation involves certain twists. One key detail is that the director of public health is the brother-in-law of Cook County Board of Commissioners President Todd Stroger. Stroger gained infamy in 2007 when, immediately following his installation by the County Democratic machine, he launched massive cuts to the county healthcare system. Despite an ongoing financial crisis, Strogerhas continued to hire and promote friends and family to positions with county government and the health bureau. A second detail is that CNA/NNOC led a successful fight for While "reform and reva board enue" in 2008 that reversal led to both increased looks unlikely tax revenues to fund at this point, healthcare services CNA/NNOC and the creation of an is committed, independent board of as it has directors that was been since supposed to reduce its arrival the influence of enin Chicago, trenched political to make interests over the this a public healthcare system. fight. But county nurses were shocked and outraged when the newly appointed board of directors voted to eliminate the pre- and postnatal program without investigating the county's claims of fiscal hardship or holding public hearings. CNA/NNOC quickly discovered that Stroger's brother-in-law misled the board: federal funding had never actually been cut and the program was not in any immediate financial danger. Despite multiple attempts to reach out to directors - both directly and with the help of CNA/NNOC's community allies - the board has, to date, refused to hold public hearings, let alone reverse its vote. While a board reversal looks unlikely at this point, CNA/NNOC is committed, as it has been since its arrival in Chicago, to make this a public fight. The goal now is to ensure that future decisions by the board will be based on careful deliberation and only after public and nurse input. —frank borgers SEPTEMBER 2008