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Budget fight focus of nurses’ annual conference
Dec 11, 2008 5:05 PM
Conference participants show their enthusiasm during the event.
[For more photos, go to the “Budget fight focus of nurses’ annual conference” gallery]
The dismal economic outlook may mean budget cuts for public health in New York State, but the more than 200 nurses at the Federation of Nurses/UFT 23rd annual Professional Issues Conference are as determined as ever to fight for their rights and for quality care for their patients.
“We are engaged in an incredible struggle that will shape health care,” Federation of Nurses/UFT division Special Representative Anne Goldman told the assembled nurses to loud applause. “There is no walking away from this struggle, this fight.”
UFT President Randi Weingarten (fourth from left) and Goldman (third from right) with chapter leaders (from left) Leslie McDonnell of the occupational and physical therapists chapter, Cara Skillingford of Visiting Nurse Service, Renee Setteducato of Lutheran Medical Center, Cynthia McDaniel of Jewish Home and Hospital, Pat Ross Spiller of the school nurse chapter and Nancy Miller of Staten Island University Hospital South.
For these RNs and LPNs, who gave up valuable time off on Nov. 21 and 22 to attend the two-day conference at the New York Helmsley Hotel, patient advocacy is a point of pride. Unfortunately, given management’s push to cut costs, it is also increasingly difficult to do.
“The indignities with which we are challenged each day are incredible,” said Goldman in her opening remarks on the conference’s first day. “We thought we were in the business of offering people dignity when they are ill … We are the last resort, the only hope for what is right.”
That sentiment is what motivated conference-goer Jihad Hamad to leave her position as a supervisor at Lutheran Medical Center in 2005 after 26 years to work as a nurse.
“Health care changed,” Hamad said, strolling by the NYSUT information table outside the main conference room. “They started to look at it as a business. I wanted to be on the other side, to fight for patient care.”
But now, with budget cuts looming, patients and nurses will likely bear the burden, union officials said.
UFT Vice President Michael Mulgrew addresses the group while Federation of Nurses/UFT division Special Representative Anne Goldman looks on.
“Make no mistake about it. At the top of the food chain, the CEOs are doing fine,” Goldman said. “They do not suffer when the cuts come, they do not suffer when we are forced to roll back patient care.”
While patients may suffer from reduced services, nurses themselves are also feeling the squeeze. Chronic understaffing is a particularly thorny problem, accounting for 350 grievances this year alone, Goldman said.
Nurse-patient ratios also continue to rise, and leaky ceilings and overcrowded emergency rooms try the patience of even the most experienced staff, she said.
“The most important challenge we face is what may be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” added UFT President Randi Weingarten in her keynote address on the first day.
“There is no doubt that the Wall Street collapse will have a profound effect on our working lives,” she said.
The union and its allies in the One New York: Fighting for Fairness coalition, Weingarten said, would fight hard to protect education, health care and the economic security of its members.
Ron “Cook” Barrett leads the “Gangs and You” workshop.
In a panel on the politics of health care, NYSUT legislative staffer John Green added another layer to the discussion, offering insights into what to expect from Albany in the coming months.
“Gov. [David] Paterson tried to impose midyear cuts this past week,” he said. “We were able to push them back, but the cuts are coming.”
Funding for Medicare, hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and recruitment and retention of nurses and other staff are all likely to be reduced in the next state budget, Green predicted.
But despite the challenges ahead, the nurses also had much to celebrate at this year’s conference. Weingarten, who since becoming UFT president in 1998 has never missed the annual event, praised the work of the Federation of Nurses/UFT in leading the drive to abolish mandatory overtime for nurses in New York State.
“It took us eight years, but in September Gov. Paterson signed into law a bill abolishing mandatory overtime,” Weingarten said. “Our No. 1 fight has been to end mandatory overtime and we have won!”
Weingarten also noted the union’s successful conclusion of contract negotiations at Staten Island University Hospital in March and the collaboration now underway with management at Visiting Nurse Service to improve disaster preparedness and increase recruitment of LPNs.
The conference also included an array of workshops on subjects as diverse as “The Nurse and the Law,” “Workplace Violence,” “Memory Loss,” “Identity Theft,” and Ron “Cook” Barrett’s “Gangs and You,” the No. 1 crowd-pleaser for the third year in a row.
Dr. Bruce Garner chats with Hanna Curanaj (right) of Visiting Nurse Service and Jihad Hamad of Lutheran Medical Center.
