URGENT ACTION NEEDED: Nurses to UC President Napolitano

It is appalling that UC Management would attempt to destroy and destabilize our nurses retirement after we’ve spent our lifetime taking care of our patients. Today join your colleagues in letting President Napolitano know that attempting to destabilize our pension is bad for patient care.
 
Please click the link below to send her an email:

president@ucop.edu

 

The proposal to eliminate our secure pension is disrespectful to the dedication we have to our patients and our profession. 90% of the nurses at UC are women. Women are almost twice as likely as men to live below the poverty line during retirement.  Attempting to erode our pension only takes us backwards.

President Napolitano we urge you to support and stand behind the nurses and maintain the secure retirement plan that we currently have.

 

Click here to see the details in UC’s destabilization plan.

Nurses and the caregivers are the heart of our University of California. We will stand up until our profession and our patients win.

Part 2 of 5:  Nurses and Why They’re Critical in the Legislative Process

Don Nielsen, Director, Government Relations for CNA visited with Nurse Talk about nurses and the critical reasons they are involved in the legislative process. Recently nurses urged California lawmakers to support several bills, which protect patient’s rights. SB 483 addresses “observation” status, and the other bill AB 305 addresses gender disparity with respect to workers comp.

Part 1 of 5: Nurse Talk speaks with CNA Director of Gov’t Relations, Don Nielsen

In a 5 part series, California Nurses Association Director of Government Relations, Don Nielsen joins Nurse Talk to discuss the critical issues facing nurses as they advocate for their patients. Don also talks about the legislative process, specific bills that are supported by CNA and why nurses must be involved in political issues and healthcare policy decisions.

Video: An Interview with Malinda Markowitz

One of the least reported problems in U.S. hospitals is the placement of patients in “observation” status, where they can be held for hours or days with less public oversight and fewer protections.

Hundreds of registered nurses from across California gathered in Sacramento,Tuesday, May 12 on the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale to encourage state legislators to step up efforts to improve protections for hospital patients, and stop an attack on regulatory safeguards.

“Our state is not for sale”
“We want justice for our patients”

Malinda Markowitz is an RN and one of the Presidents of California Nurses Association.

For more information of Nurse Talk, visit our website at www.nursetalksite.com.

Sen Sanders Joins Forces with Nurses and Students, Introduces ”College For All Act”

The Robin Hood Tax swooped into America’s national spotlight when presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders joined with National Nurses United and student groups in Washington, D.C. at a press conference today to announce his introduction of two Senate bills  – the College for All Act and the Robin Hood tax bill that would levy a small tax on Wall Street financial transactions in order to fund free tuition at every public college and university in the United States, as well as slash interest rates on existing student loans.

The College for All Act and the Robin Hood Tax would set a 0.5 percent tax on most stock transactions, and a lesser tax on bond and derivative trades. Such a tax has been championed for years by NNU, the country’s largest organization of registered nurses, and other healthcare and climate change groups and is already in effect in more than 40 countries around the world, including Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and China. A similar Robin Hood Tax bill, H.R. 1464, introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison, is pending in the House of Representatives. The tax is estimated to raise about $300 billion per year to fund programs such as free higher education, healthcare for all, and a reversal of climate change.

RoseAnn DeMoro, NNU’s executive director, said that nurses often see the health results that a lifetime of accumulated debt, stress, and poverty cause.

“The nurses are here because we have fought long and hard for a Robin Hood Tax to fund education, healthcare, shoring up our environment, to fund everything that has to do with human suffering,” said DeMoro. “Because what the nurses end up seeing at the bedside is all the unnecessary human despair and suffering when we don’t have these things.”

The country’s young adults are currently drowning in about $1.3 trillion of student loan debt that is borrowed at rates often set higher than mortgage and car loan rates. This crushing debt is a huge burden that prevents many young people from advancing in their careers and lives, stopping them from buying a car, getting married, buying a house, or having children.

“The time is long overdue for the American Congress to start listening to the needs of the American people and not just Wall Street,” said Sanders, flanked by students and registered nurses. “This is not a radical idea. Only in a Congress dominated by Wall Street and big money is this considered a radical idea

A huge student loan industry, as well as the federal government, has sprung up to service and profit off this need for loans, and student loans are currently bought and sold just like toxic mortgage debt was before the mortgage bubble burst in 2008. Some economists believe another bubble has ballooned around student debt, and is poised to pop soon, as well.

Sanders pointed out that many European nations make public secondary learning free for all qualified and willing students. Last year, Germany eliminated tuition at its public colleges. Denmark not only makes college free, but pays students to attend. In Sweden and Finland, public colleges are not only free to citizens but foreign students. Even in the United States, many public universities just a couple generations ago used to be free or at least very low cost.

Contrast that to today, when Sanders said that he cannot go anywhere in Vermont without parents coming up to him to discuss this crisis. “They come up to me and say, ‘This is crazy,’” recounted Sanders. “The other day I talked to a young doctor who told me her crime, the crime of becoming a general practitioner, was $300,000 of student debt.”

Some students at the press conference testified to not only the burden of graduating with major student loans, but how difficult it was to not be able to focus on their college studies while they were working two, three, four jobs to make ends meet – even with loans.

“While I was in school, I worked multiple jobs and often did not know whether I would have enough money to return to school the next semester,” said Alexandra Flores-Quilty (pictured left) of the United States Student Association, a group that advocates for students. She graduated late from the University of Oregon and now owes about $20,000 in student loans as well as $30,000 to her single mom. “Education is the foundation of any country. A free education means a free society. We need Sen. Sanders legislation to make sure that education is a right, not a privilege.”

Octavia Savage (pictured right), a recent accounting graduate from Bloomfield College, said that she worked day and night to afford college, on top of student loans. “When applying for college, the most important concern about college was, ‘How am I going to pay for school?’” said Savage, who worked in the college library, at UPS, at Sprint, and at Wal-Mart to make ends meet and still graduated with $26,000 in debt. “Students shouldn’t have to drown in debt to get the education they need to survive.”

 NNU’s DeMoro added, “People say, why are the nurses supporting a Robin Hood Tax? Because they experience despair and human suffering with every shift that is completely unnecessary.”

 

Click here to watch the press conference.

Watch the Robin Hood Tax USA live stream.

Nurse Talk Radio Visits With RN and Chair of Veterans Affairs for NNU

Nurse Talk Radio Visits With RN and Chair of Veterans Affairs for NNU 

Registered nurses marked International Nurses’ Day with two actions in the District of Columbia aimed at protecting patients and caregivers. “As we speak, management continues to harass, threaten and intimidate RN’s who speak up on behalf of veterans. RNs will always advocate on behalf of our nation’s heroes to provide them the best possible care,” said Irma Westmoreland, RN, chair of Veterans Affairs for National Nurses United.

 

 

 

 

By Pattie Lockard
Executive Producer
Nurse Talk Radio

Nurses Week: Celebrating Nurse Power!

Happy Nurses Week! We’re marking this time by celebrating Nurse Power! Throughout the week, we’re highlighting a few moments in our history that show what happens when nurses organize, act collectively and bring about social change. 

Look for social media posts on National Nurses United Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/nationalnurses – about how nurses helped improve public health and worker safety, fought for women’s rights, stood up to racial discrimination and gained collective bargaining rights. 

Some examples:

1863 – Susie King Taylor served as the first Black Army nurse in the Civil War with the all Black army troop, First South Carolina Volunteers. Like many African American nurses, she was never paid for her work. 

 

 

1893 – Nurses Lillian Wald and Mary Brewster created the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Henry Street Settlement to serve thousands of immigrants living in tenements in the Lower East Side of NYC.  These programs, which continue to thrive, formed the roots of Public Health Nursing. 

 

 

1902 – The nurse–led Henry Street Settlement in New York City created one of the first public playgrounds for children and started a national movement so that children living in crowded tenements could have a clean and safe place to play. 

1908 – National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was founded to represent the professional interests of Black nurses and combat widespread racial discrimination in nursing.

 

 

1912-1913 – Lavinia Dock, nursing education pioneer and women’s rights activist, took part in suffrage hikes to help promote women’s right to vote. 

1945 – California nurses won the first collective bargaining agreement by RNs in the country. RNs won 15 percent raise in pay to $200 a month, OT pay, on-call pay, shift differentials, health benefits, paid holidays, vacations and sick leave.

1966 – Mass resignation of 1,979 nurses from 33 California hospitals, resulting in 40 percent increase in pay – $700 a month. 

1999 – After hard grassroots effort by nurses, California became the first state to pass a law requiring a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio in hospitals.

2008 – RNs at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston vote to join CNA – becoming the first nurses in a private-sector hospital in Texas to win union collective bargaining rights.

2014 – After speaking out and holding massive demonstrations, nurses win mandatory Ebola guidelines, which set a new benchmark for strong infection control protections for other epidemics.

Today, National Nurses United RNs are carrying on the proud tradition of helping improve the health and lives of our patients, our families and our communities by advocating for social reform  — Medicare for all, environmental justice, labor rights, Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street, free higher education and a national network that sends RNs to disaster-stricken areas (RNRN). 

Thank you for all you do, nurses!  Be sure to look for the #NursesWeek hashtag. 

RNs, Sierra Club survey Richmond neighborhoods on health impact of coal, petcoke trains

“You can’t run if you can’t afford to leave,” says a middle-aged man with long, graying dreads. He’s standing in the driveway of his home in Richmond, California.   “But I do think they’re trying to get rid of us, either by making us move, or by—”

His unfinished sentence hangs in the air, as he fills out a community health survey on the impact of the coal trains that are running through his neighborhood, their uncovered cars spewing toxic dust into the air.

Where is the dust coming from? Big corporations in Utah and Colorado use the rail lines to transport coal to East Bay Area shipping ports, where it can be exported to other countries as fuel. 

While moving toxic fuels means profit for corporate interests, local residents may be paying the price with their health. In addition to the trains, they also live adjacent to the Chevron refinery, which has been repeatedly cited for environmental violations. That’s why RNs from the California Nurses Association have partnered with the Sierra Club on a Monday evening, to canvas Richmond’s Parchester Village. They’re surveying residents of the predominantly African American/Latino neighborhood for information on any health impact they may have experienced as a result of environmental toxins.

“Uncovered coal trains come in 125-car trains, twice a week, and they are polluting our community.  That’s why we are doing this community health survey,” says Ratha Lai, Sierra Club Conservation Coordinator and Richmond resident. “Through this, we are going to build some concrete, raw data that our elected official partners can take and advocate at the state level.”

On this night, three CNA registered nurses have joined in the canvassing: Mary Roth, a Kaiser Vallejo advice nurse and 29-year Richmond resident; Johanna Lavorando, a Kaiser Richmond Medical/Surgical nurse and former Richmond resident of 8 years; and Maria Sahagun, a 10-year Richmond resident and former registered nurse at the recently closed Doctors Medical Center (DMC).

“I came out here tonight because healthcare and environmental discussion go hand in hand,” says Sahagun, who wonders how residents will be treated for the symptoms they may experience as a result of the toxic trains, when the closure of DMC left a hole in access to healthcare. “West County is surrounded by these coal trains and a toxin-emitting corporation, and you removed the hospital? It’s a blatant act of discrimination.”

DMC closed on April 21, and now the more than 40,000 people—many of them low-income Medicare and Medi-Cal patients—who used the DMC emergency room each year are without close proximity to a hospital. Yet, as Sahagun points out, these residents are now experiencing a dearth in care, while living both in Chevron’s backyard and adjacent to coal trains.

“Poor communities have to suffer such an assault on their health because of the way heavy industries are placed near them. And when we don’t even have a healthcare system to help them deal with that stuff, it’s really disturbing,” agrees Roth, who explains that nurses wind up treating patients for asthma, heart disease and other illnesses that can be triggered by environmental toxins.

“I think it’s important, from a public health point of view, for nurses to participate in community events,” Lavorando adds. “With these coal trains, it’s critical that we gather as much information as we can, and give it to officials who can try to change regulations.

”

Lavorando explains that at one stop during the evening’s canvassing, a young father shared a lengthy list of symptoms, including vision and breathing problems. Yet, he hadn’t been sure whether or not pollutants could be a factor.

“He said the doctor checked him out and told him he was okay, but he was telling us, ‘I know I’m not okay,’ because his chest was hurting and his throat was closing up,” Lavorando says. “And his story wound up being the same story that a neighbor shared.  So again, that’s why it’s important as nurses to take part in these events and gather this information—to get people thinking about what kind of symptoms can be triggered by the environment.”

At the end of the evening, Lai gathers the anonymous surveys to bring back to Sierra Club’s offices, where they will be compiled with data gathered on future canvassing events, to eventually turn over to local and state representatives. Will the data herald change? For the RNs and the Sierra Club, a healthier community and a cleaner environment is worth the work of standing up to corporate interests.

“I’m glad someone cares. We tend to disappear,” says the man filling out the form in his driveway. “I think you guys have a big fight. But it’s good someone is ready to fight.”

RNs, Sierra Club survey Richmond neighborhoods on health impact of coal trains

“You can’t run if you can’t afford to leave,” says a middle-aged man with long, graying dreads. He’s standing in the driveway of his home in Richmond, California. “But I do think they’re trying to get rid of us, either by making us move, or by—”

His unfinished sentence hangs in the air, as he fills out a community health survey on the impact of the coal trains that are running through his neighborhood, their uncovered cars spewing toxic dust into the air.

Where is the dust coming from? Big corporations in Utah and Colorado use the rail lines to transport coal to East Bay Area shipping ports, where it can be exported to other countries as fuel. 

While moving toxic fuels means profit for corporate interests, local residents may be paying the price with their health. In addition to the trains, they also live adjacent to the Chevron refinery, which has been repeatedly cited for environmental violations. That’s why RNs from the California Nurses Association have partnered with the Sierra Club on a Monday evening, to canvas Richmond’s Parchester Village. They’re surveying residents of the predominantly African American/Latino neighborhood for information on any health impact they may have experienced as a result of environmental toxins.

“Uncovered coal trains come in 125-car trains, twice a week, and they are polluting our community.  That’s why we are doing this community health survey,” says Ratha Lai, Sierra Club Conservation Coordinator and Richmond resident. “Through this, we are going to build some concrete, raw data that our elected official partners can take and advocate at the state level.”

On this night, three CNA registered nurses have joined in the canvassing: Mary Roth, a Kaiser Vallejo advice nurse and 29-year Richmond resident; Johanna Lavorando, a Kaiser Richmond Medical/Surgical nurse and former Richmond resident of 8 years; and Maria Sahagun, a 10-year Richmond resident and former registered nurse at the recently closed Doctors Medical Center (DMC).

“I came out here tonight because healthcare and environmental discussion go hand in hand,” says Sahagun, who wonders how residents will be treated for the symptoms they may experience as a result of the toxic trains, when the closure of DMC left a hole in access to healthcare. “West County is surrounded by these coal trains and a toxin-emitting corporation, and you removed the hospital? It’s a blatant act of discrimination.”

DMC closed on April 21, and now the more than 40,000 people—many of them low-income Medicare and Medi-Cal patients—who used the DMC emergency room each year are without close proximity to a hospital. Yet, as Sahagun points out, these residents are now experiencing a dearth in care, while living both in Chevron’s backyard and adjacent to coal trains.

“Poor communities have to suffer such an assault on their health because of the way heavy industries are placed near them. And when we don’t even have a healthcare system to help them deal with that stuff, it’s really disturbing,” agrees Roth, who explains that nurses wind up treating patients for asthma, heart disease and other illnesses that can be triggered by environmental toxins.

“I think it’s important, from a public health point of view, for nurses to participate in community events,” Lavorando adds. “With these coal trains, it’s critical that we gather as much information as we can, and give it to officials who can try to change regulations.

”

Lavorando explains that at one stop during the evening’s canvassing, a young father shared a lengthy list of symptoms, including vision and breathing problems. Yet, he hadn’t been sure whether or not pollutants could be a factor.

“He said the doctor checked him out and told him he was okay, but he was telling us, ‘I know I’m not okay,’ because his chest was hurting and his throat was closing up,” Lavorando says. “And his story wound up being the same story that a neighbor shared.  So again, that’s why it’s important as nurses to take part in these events and gather this information—to get people thinking about what kind of symptoms can be triggered by the environment.”

At the end of the evening, Lai gathers the anonymous surveys to bring back to Sierra Club’s offices, where they will be compiled with data gathered on future canvassing events, to eventually turn over to local and state representatives. Will the data herald change? For the RNs and the Sierra Club, a healthier community and a cleaner environment is worth the work of standing up to corporate interests.

“I’m glad someone cares. We tend to disappear,” says the man filling out the form in his driveway. “I think you guys have a big fight. But it’s good someone is ready to fight.”