NY Nurse October 2013

Like it or not, politics matters — a lot. Elected officials at every level of government pass budgets and laws that profoundly affect our lives. Healthcare is far from immune. Just think about our efforts to win a statewide safe staffing law, funding for public hospitals, and the fact that thousands of NYSNA members working in those hospitals need to win strong, new contracts.

We cannot let others shape healthcare in America without hearing loudly – and clearly – from us, the people at the bedside delivering care and putting our professional oath into practice.

A look at the Affordable Care Act

Whether or not history one day considers the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a victory for patients or insurance companies depends, in part, on what we do next.

The Affordable Care Act’s healthcare exchanges began selling insurance plans on October 1 — and already big insurance companies are twisting the law to make a buck. The New York Times found that companies like Cigna are offering ACA plans with small networks of doctors and hospitals in order to make a profit.

That’s just one of the contradictory effects of the new health law.

The nationwide trend of hospital consolidation has sparked controversy about the potential long-term effect on healthcare costs. Hospital consolidations are already having unexpected consequences in upstate New York, where 68 percent of all hospitals (outside of the New York City metropolitan area) are affiliated with at least one other hospital.

NYSNA Endorsed Candidates

New York City | City Council Districts | Erie County | Nassau County |
Onondaga County | Schenectady County | Suffolk County
Ulster County | Westchester County

There’s no time to hang back and rest on our recent progress. We stopped the full-on assault on healthcare in 2013. But we have not won — yet. This year we’re upping our ante in every fight and pushing even harder to bring home a safe staffing law and strong contracts, and to keep Wall Street out of healthcare in New York for good. Here, NYSNA board members share their thoughts on what success will take.

I’m writing this shortly before the NYSNA convention, which will conclude with our newly elected board taking office. We’ve had a remarkable year. Literally thousands of NYSNA members stepped up and got involved in the fight for safe staffing and quality healthcare for all New Yorkers.

Nurses are tough. We stare suffering in the face every day, and we don’t flinch. We just keep our professional promise and deliver compassionate, expert care, day in, day out. We have brought that same toughness to reforming our union.

The story of how we kept LICH and Interfaith open is a story of dedication, commitment — and how changing our union has given us the power to stop hospital closures.

Since 2000, 28 hospitals have closed across our state. As the new NYSNA, we’ve vowed to stop this.

Until now, NYSNA was not up to the challenge. When a hospital closing was announced, NYSNA’s old orientation was to hold resumé writing workshops – rather than to organize a comprehensive and strategic campaign to fight the closing.

By Julie Semente, RN, Secretary, LICH Executive Committee

Last January, we opened the morning newspaper and found out that SUNY planned to close LICH, the hospital where I’ve helped save lives for 30 years. I immediately knew the effort that would have to be put forth to fight for LICH’s life. Slumping into a chair, I said “I can’t do this again,” but I knew that it had to be done and I, we, would do it. LICH nurses never walk away from a fight.

Anti-union politicians and business interests are out to destroy our public hospitals. And they’ve got a strategy:

Environment and Health

Professor Wade Hill is an RN with a Ph.D. in Public Health. He teaches and researches at the College of Nursing at Montana State University. His specialties include the health effects of climate change and the leading role nurses should play in addressing the climate crisis. He and May Boeve, executive director and co-founder of 350.org, a global organization fighting climate change, will be leading a workshop on climate change, health, and nursing at the NYSNA convention. We spoke recently.

Public sector nurses unite statewide

In September, 200 of NYSNA’s public sector nurses from every part of the state came together for our first-ever conference dedicated specifically to sharing our experiences and strategizing our next steps in fighting the attack on public hospitals.

By Jill Furillo, RN, NYSNA Executive Director

When you look beyond the homeless, among them 20,000 children in New York City alone, beyond the hardship of elderly women from whom $75 in monthly food stamps – a week’s groceries – was “sequestered” away this year, and look past smoldering forests where firefighters died, their ranks depleted by layoffs from blistering budget cuts, what you see are piles of cash.