Nurses, members of Local 97 of the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, say that mandatory ratios are necessary. Too often the nurses are understaffed, putting patients' health and even lives at risk. Capital Health, their employer, argues that mandatory ratios are too costly to implement and not effective. Bargaining has reached a standstill, a mediator has been appointed and the countdown to a strike has started.

"Tort reform"--read that as "shutting the courthouse door to malpractice victims"--again is rearing its ugly head as a means to reduce healthcare costs, most recently as a plank in the recent GOP healthcare proposals.

Nurses join others, including Food & Water Watch, in Carson where the city council is voting tonight on a temporary ban on oil drilling following fracking concerns.

As registered nurses and Fallbrook Healthcare District residents, red flags went up for us when we read last week’s Village News. How can this be? For those who may not know, our little community hospital is operated by the largest for-profit corporation in America – Community Health Systems (CHS), which made $265 million in profits in 2013, according to Fortune magazine. It seems the healthcare district has already spent some of our money on a consultant’s report and held months of closed-door meetings leading up to the article.

I am a Nebraska citizen from Holt County. I have been speaking out against KXL since my first editorial in April 2009. I drink water from the aquifer, 52 feet down, absolutely pure, no treatment or filtration needed. The first route would have been 2 miles to the west of our private well and I was terrified. I called the EPA and an environmental scientist told me he would be concerned also. My concerns were confirmed when I heard Dr Goeke, a UNL water specialist (who now the pipeline proponents quote as having no concern to the water) testify at a NE legislative hearing Dec 1, 2010 that contaminants could migrate up to 2 miles in our groundwater!