Staff members expecting a quiet morning at Rep. Jim Costa’s Fresno office—underestimated what can happen when Congress members vote to endanger public health, with a trade deal that could balloon medication costs, overturn nurse-to-patient ratios, and destroy the environment.
In solidarity with students across the country protesting the outrageous costs and crippling debts of their college educations, more than 800 registered nurses with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United marched and rallied Nov. 12 with University of California at Berkeley students as part of the Million Student March.
Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc last week in the Caribbean and the U.S. The hardest hit was Haiti, where the unofficial death toll (a number reported by Reuters but not officially confirmed) has now risen to 1,000, where they are starting to bury the dead in mass graves.
From the first cry of a newborn child, to the last breath of a dying patient, there’s a constant foundation on which Kaiser patients can always rely: Kaiser nurses. Nurses are the hand-holding, life-saving thread woven throughout their patients' entire healthcare experience.
With House Speaker Paul Ryan pledging to push major Medicare cuts to reduce the added $1 trillion in federal debt created by the huge tax gifts for corporations and the super-rich proposed in versions of the House and Senate tax bill that Republicans are working to reconcile.
Behind all of the disheartening statistics found in the current for-profit syustem are real people, enduring pain and suffering that should be unacceptable in the wealthiest country on earth.
Zenei Cortez, RN, Co-President of National Nurses United
The COVID-19 deaths in America were not inevitable. They are the result of President Trump and his administration abandoning nurses, other health care and frontline workers, and the public at large.
Bonnie Castillo, Executive Director of National Nurses United
