National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:Final 6/7/07 2:55 PM Page 5 less of the governor's actions because guaranteed healthcare is a priority of the public that is quickly gaining momentum beyond the term of any one elected official. "I don't frankly care if he vetoes the bill again," said Kuehl. "He is irrelevant to universal healthcare in the state of California." Speakers representing firefighters, consumers, teachers, doctors, and retirees also rallied the crowd and discussed how rising premiums and deductibles, claims rejections, and health insurance red tape have hurt their members and families. Especially moving was the speech by one RN, Cynthia Campbell. She explained how, facing two rare cancer diagnoses, she and her husband have had to fight their insurance company day and night to get claims paid and now can't extend her short-term policy because of her preexisting conditions. (See profile on Campbell on page 20 for more on her story.) The rally was not complete without one of CNA/NNOC's creative stunts. At one point during the rally, people dressed up as insurance company executives jumped out of a 12foot tall Trojan horse to symbolize how the proposals by officials such as Schwarzenegger, Sen. Don Perata, and Assemblyman Fabian Nuñez are simply plans to force consumers to buy junk insurance policies, disguised as universal healthcare. Nurses attending the rally agreed that a guaranteed, single-payer system would help the patients they see every day. "We want for everybody in the United States to have a healthcare policy," said Josephine AzuwikeNlekwa, a medical-surgical RN at Provident Hospital with the Cook County Bureau of Health Services in Chicago. "People have been denied healthcare because they don't have insurance. We want that to stop." Lindy Abts, an orthopedic RN at Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona, agreed that we should not keep building on a fundamentally flawed system of private insurance. "The system we have is not working," said Abts. "There's millions of people that aren't covered, or they have insurance that doesn't do anything for them. So I'm here to change that." —staff report M AY 2 0 0 7 Maine RNs Learn from Ratio Fight aine registered nurses and pa- board member and president of the Maine tients were more than ready for State Nurses Association, an affiliate of ratios, but unfortunately this year NNOC. "We had a lot of support and felt it was time to get it on the board the Legislature was not. Despite here and make the public aware numerous testimonies, letters, of what we're trying to do." e-mails, and phone calls from At a standing-room-only legnurses, patients, and community islative hearing May 3 before the members about the dangers of labor committee, close to 30 unsafe staffing in hospitals, the Maine RNs appeared to testify in Joint Standing Committee on support of the bill, sharing realLabor ultimately caved to the Maine RN members hospital industry and on May 10 and legislators speak life situations and stories of understaffing. unanimously passed a gutted in favor of the ratio "Every single day at work I am version of bill LD 1538, An Act to bill at a May 3 press very stressed about my patients' Increase the Safety of Hospital conference. safety," Barbara Joyce, an ICU RN Patients. told the committee. "These very Nurses active with the campaign, however, say that the process of fight- ill people are totally dependent on me to keep ing for ratio legislation was a critical learning them safe and alive but there is so little staff experience and that they will be that much bet- that I can't get my work accomplished beter prepared to reintroduce the bill during the cause I need to be in two places at the same next legislative session. Maine nurses mobi- time. I work as fast and hard as I can but the lized like never before, flexed their muscles in workload is overwhelming to me." Nurses are optimistic about their chances state politics, and put the Maine Hospital Association on notice that they are not going to of passing a ratio bill in 2009 and will be let hospitals' bad staffing practices go un- organizing well in advance of that session. Nurses in California tried several times to challenged. "It was very important to go through," win ratio laws before finally succeeding in said Maureen Caristi, RN, CNA/NNOC 1999. —staff report M MAINE W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 5

• Cover