CHARTING PROGRESS — Assembly Member Maureen
O’Connell, the only nurse serving in the state
Legislature, discusses legislation with PEF nurses at
their PEF Convention luncheon in Syracuse last month,
where she was guest speaker.— Photo by Jonah
Triebwasser
Legislative
remedies good, but not enough
Legislator to PEF nurses: Prognosis for nursing is poor;
strong therapy required
By LENORE BORIS, RN
Nurses know how to take bad news in stride.
So, nurse Maureen O’Connell, who is also state
Assembly Member Maureen O’Connell, didn’t pull
any punches in September when she addressed the
nurses’ luncheon at the PEF convention in Syracuse.
The problems of short staffing, mandatory overtime and
inadequate pay are growing in both the private and public
sector and are likely to get worse as the nationwide
shortage of nurses continues, she told the 100 nurses and
guests.
As the only RN serving in the state Legislature, and the
ranking Republican member of the Assembly Health
Committee, O’Connell is in an ideal spot to see
what’s happening in health care and nursing.
Nurses across the country are frustrated with
management’s unresponsiveness to workplace concerns
and increasingly calling for lawmakers to act.
Seven states already have passed legislation setting
nurse staffing standards and 16 more states are
considering similar bills.
New York and other states have passed bills to require
safer needles and protect health-care workers who blow
the whistle on poor patient care.
Recently, New Jersey became the first state to pass
legislation prohibiting mandatory overtime. PEF nurses
are among those in New York seeking similar legislation.
However, O’Connell warned that legislation is not a
quick fix.
“Unlike nursing,” she said, “problem
solving (through legislative action) is lengthy.
Government is meant to be deliberative.”
O’Connell urged nurses to take the initiative in
solving their workplace problems.
Besides looking for legislative solutions, she said, try
changing nursing education, public relations efforts and
workplace advocacy to correct the problems in
professional nursing. Nurses can work together on many
fronts, she said, for better pay and working conditions.
“Safety is the battle cry,” O’Connell
said, but focus your arguments on the patient’s
welfare more than your own.
“Making it about ‘me,’ does not work as
well as ‘my patient’ is suffering,” she
said.
Call PEF nurse organizer Lenore Boris at 1-800-342-4306,
ext. 340 or emailto: lboris@pef.org to learn how you can help the PEF
Nurses Committee stand up for nursing.
Nurses are the
mainstay of the healthcare system.
Safety and the quality of patient care are the wedges
nurses can use to make improvements that will also better
their own working conditions.
Legislators
let funding die
Union
prevails in SNPS war
PEF’s dogged refusal to let state services to New
York’s mentally ill citizens be hired out to the
lowest bidders, has paid off.
The union finally succeeded in pulling the plug on the
state’s Special Needs Plans. SNPs, as it’s
known, drew its last breaths when the 2000 Legislative
Session ended without agreement on a reauthorization bill
to keep the program going.
Reportedly, state lawmakers have no plans to take up the
issue in a special legislative session, but it could be
reintroduced next year.
“This is a tremendous victory over a plan that could
have shut out PEF members and their services to the
mentally ill,” said PEF President Roger Benson.
“For the last three years, since the initial request
for information was first released by the state Office of
Mental Health, we have been at the forefront of those
concerned with the effect this Medicaid
managed-behavioral-care system would have on the quality
of care provided to the mentally ill,” Benson said.
The union fought back with letters to legislators,
testimony at legislative hearings, face-to-face meetings
with key lawmakers and ads in the Legislative Gazette.
“We raised questions about the fragility of the
safety net, the fiber of which is composed of our members
in the OMH facilities,” Benson said. “We
questioned the number of outpatients in OMH programs who
would be transferred out of the Prepaid Mental Health
Plan. We questioned the role state-operated programs
would have under SNPS, and we questioned the reliability
of privately managed behavioral care.
It took a lot of work and a lot of questions, Benson
said, but the legislators began to realize the answers
just weren’t good enough.
“It’s very satisfying when our hard work is
rewarded,” Benson added, “particularly when
it’s for such an important issue.”
— Sherry Halbrook