News | National Nurses United

Taking a hike for health

"Take me to General" is a reference to San Joaquin General Hospital that a local police officer or firefighter might make if they were critically injured. The facility's reputation is that strong, according to nurses who work there. But that slogan could become a distant memory in a few months if county officials and hospital administrators move forward with a recommendation to eliminate its emergency neurotrauma center for head and spinal injuries. —Stockton Record, 04/13/10 More »

California News

Whitman’s fortune entwined with Goldman Sachs

Candidate Meg Whitman touts her experience at eBay, the online auction house that made her rich, but her career and personal fortune are entwined with another company: the Goldman Sachs investment bank, a major player in public finance in the state she wants to lead. Whitman’s relationship with the giant Wall Street firm — as investor, corporate director and recipient of both insider stock deals and campaign donations — could pose conflicts of interest if the Republican front-runner is elected governor of California, critics say. —CaliforniaWatch.org, 04/10/10 More »

California News

The cost of Temple Hospital replacements

On its Web site, Health Source Global Staffing, a California company, put out a bid for help at Temple University Hospital, where 1,500 nurses and allied health professionals have been on strike since March 31. "We are recruiting for an upcoming strike in Philadelphia at a large teaching hospital," the Web site said. "We need over 830 nurses, techs and other staff to take care of patients. We are asking for your help." —Philadelphia Enquirer, 04/09/10 More »

Pennsylvania News

Pro-single-payer doctors: Health bill leaves 23 million uninsured - A false promise of reform

As much as we would like to join the celebration of the House's passage of the health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot. We take no comfort in seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer. Instead of eliminating the root of the problem - the profit-driven, private health insurance industry - this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers' defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money. —Physicians for a National Health Program, 03/22/10 More »

Nationwide News

Chico nurse works on hospital ship off Haiti

Two weeks off Haiti aboard a Navy hospital ship left Darrell Daugherty, a nurse from Chico, with vivid memories and plenty of material for his diary. It was the chance of a lifetime to work aboard the USNS Comfort, Daugherty said in an interview this week. "I met great people. I thought they were doing a very good job." —Chico Enterprise Record, 03/14/10 More »

Nationwide News

UCI hospital out of compliance again

Federal regulators visiting UC Irvine Medical Center found two cases of immediate jeopardy - the most serious finding of potential danger to patients - during an inspection last week, according to a memo sent to hospital employees. —Orange County Register, 03/11/10 More »

California News

Executives Who Get Paid Millions To Deny You Health Care Coverage

The business model of American health insurers is basically: try to get healthy customers as clients, and then resist as long as possible when it comes to paying out claims. That’s actually not an indictment or a criticism. It’s just the way our system works, and it’s screwed up. —wallstcheatsheet.com, 03/10/10 More »

Nationwide News

Local nurse spends two weeks helping earthquake victims in Haiti

Lauren Aichele, operating room nurse at UCSF at Mount Zion, was one of three nurses chosen out of thousands of applicants to National Nurses United to help earthquake victims in Haiti. She stayed on the Navy’s medical ship, the USNS Comfort, for two weeks in February. —San Francisco Examiner, 03/08/10 More »

Nationwide News

St. Johns Hospital on Trial

The federal agency that oversees labor law has ordered St. Johns Health Center, Santa Monica, to stand trial on charges that it has violated the rights of its registered nurses. The National Labor Relations Board is prosecuting the hospital for unlawful harassment of nurse leaders, engaging in illicit spying on RNs, and interrogating nurses about union activity, among other violations. —Santa Monica DIspatch, 03/08/10 More »

California News

Modesto nurse volunteers in shattered nation of Haiti

As a veteran emergency and intensive care nurse, Marti Smith of Oakdale has cared for plenty of car crash victims and other people with severely broken bones. During her 10 days of serving on a hospital ship caring for victims of the Haiti earthquake, she wasn't struck by the severity of the injuries, but by the sheer number of Haitian people with severe trauma. —Modesto Bee, 03/06/10 More »

Nationwide, California News

Single payer, here we come

For more than 7 million working Californians who currently don't have health insurance, Congress and President Barack Obama's attempt to reform health care has been an exercise in frustration. The public option was almost immediately taken off the table, despite the fact that most independent experts agree reform won't work without it, and after a year of negotiations, no bill is in sight. —Sacramento News and Review, 03/04/10 More »

California News

Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts, Part X

Four years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a far-reaching health reform law that politicians and the media hailed as a model for other states and the federal government. That law has become the blueprint for health system change on a national scale, and its advocates have aggressively marketed a variation of the Massachusetts plan that has passed the Senate and House of Representatives. This is the tenth in an occasional series of posts that will continue to explore how well the Massachusetts law is working with an eye toward helping the press and the public understand its flashpoints. The entire series is archived here. —Columbia Journalism Review, 03/03/10 More »

Nationwide, Massachusetts News

What do we need health insurers for anyway?

Angela Braly can't kid me. When the chief executive of gargantuan health insurer WellPoint (parent of Blue Cross of California) went before a congressional subcommittee the other day, she displayed all the smile-through-the-tears pluck of Annie looking to a sunny tomorrow or Scarlett swearing to God she'll never be hungry again. —Los Angeles TImes, 02/28/10 More »

Nationwide News

Deaths Rising for Lack of Insurance, Study Finds

As members of the Obama administration and Congress met on Thursday to try to find common ground on health care, a new report warned that without comprehensive legislation, more than 275,000 adults nationwide will die over the next decade because of a lack of health insurance. Nearly 14,000 of those deaths would occur in New York State. —New York Times, 02/26/10 More »

Nationwide News

Nurses rally for safer staffing

Before Gwen Collins headed to Tallahassee this week to ask lawmakers to limit the number of patients each hospital nurse cares for, she asked her fellow RNs at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa if they had a message to convey about their workloads. Their response: "Tell them this is madness." "Nurses want to see safety for patients and sanity for themselves," said Collins, a registered nurse who has heard similar sentiments from burned-out nurses at hospitals throughout the country. "They want to make sure mistakes are not made." —St. Petersburg Times, 02/17/10 More »

Florida News

Nurses: We’re overworked and spread too thin

Nurses say they're overworked and spread too thin and it's affecting your safety. They teamed up with lawmakers Tuesday night in Kalamazoo to rally support. They're laying out the basics of new legislation that would regulate patient care across the state. House Bill 40-08 does two things. It creates a minimum nurse to patient ratio in hospitals and it also bans mandatory overtime. —WWMT (CBS), 02/17/10 More »

Michigan News

Nurses Rally For Fla. Patient Protection Bill

Florida nurses are calling for legislation to set minimum hospital staffing ratios and give them whistle-blower protection. Dozens of registered nurses marched and held a rally Wednesday near the Florida Capitol to support the introduction of what they call a a patient protection bill. —Associated Press, 02/17/10 More »

Florida News

Nurses, Doctors Head For Haiti

A month after an earthquake devastated Haiti, teams of nurses and doctors are continue to travel to the Caribbean nation to help. A group of nurses from as far away as California, Michigan and Minnesota arrived in Jacksonville Sunday night to await transportation to the U.S. Navy medical ship, the USNS Comfort, currently stationed off Haitian coast. —News 4 JAX, 02/15/10 More »

Florida News

Calif. insurer’s rate increases draw attention of federal government

President Obama's secretary of health and human services fired off a sharply worded letter to a California insurer Monday, demanding to know why it is raising rates for individual policyholders by as much as 39 percent. The unusual salvo offers a reminder that, even as health-care legislation lies in limbo in Washington, the battle over surging health care costs continues in other venues. —Washington Post, 02/08/10 More »

Nationwide, California News