Tim Rogers posted on March 26, 2010 13:43
"Nurses, today we must lift our heads from the bedside and recognize the challenging environment we are currently in and do something about it. Our profession and our patients can wait no longer – nurses are the bedrock of sound nursing policy and nurses must be heard. Without your help, bad policy decisions will continue to hammer away at the home care and hospice services you hold dear."
Sherry Thomas, BSN, MPH, AHHC Senior VP, Member AHHC CAREPAC – Capitol Ring
Dear Nurse Advocate:
Did you know that there are over 7,000 nurses in North Carolina that specifically work in home care, home health and hospice? This many nurses could be an influential and powerful advocacy for health services in the home. Most legislators and policy makers have had the opportunity to receive services from a nurse at some point in their lives.
And, the Gallop Poll last year for the 8th straight year found nurses the most trusted profession - over physicians, pharmacists and way over politicians!
But something is wrong in North Carolina when State Government's actions indicate that they do not trust nurses!
Quite frankly, we are in a time when nurses find themselves and the services they provide pushed aside. We are also in a time when State Government does not trust you the nurse to make ethical and clinically sound decisions for your patients. For example, State Government does not trust registered nurses in a Medicaid program for the elderly and disabled to accurately assess a patient's need for assistance with a bath. Currently these home care nurses provide this assessment at $14.16 an hour. Instead, State Government wants to use an independent assessor who was awarded a no bid contract to provide the assessment at nearly $250 a visit. Isn't this a slap in the face of home care nurses? And an expensive one at that!
But there is no need to feel helpless! We need collectively to lift our heads from the bedside and recognize the environment we are currently in and do something about it!
We need "nurse friendly" and "home care/home health/hospice friendly" legislators and here is why:
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When State Government proposed to cut Medicaid hospice services last year in the State budget the nurses were astonished! This cannot happen again to Hospice services.
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When an unfriendly legislator asked for patient data by their race before proposing to cut the home care program (which largely serves minorities) by $40 million dollars the nurses were appalled! This cannot happen again to home care patients.
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When a daughter in her sixties (still working full time) testified in court with tears in her eyes that her mother in her 80's could not stay home without her home care aide’s assistance, nurses were aghast that the State had landed this family in this situation. (The patient had been a domestic all her life and had no safety net other than Medicaid.) This cannot happen again to poor patients and families.
How do we make a difference and turn around these bad policy decisions?
Join the CAREPAC -the political action committee of the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC).
We need your help to turn around these bad clinical policy decisions! Click Here to download the membership form and join CAREPAC today and please also invite a colleague to join as well! Your $50 contribution or more can make a true difference!
Please consider joining by April 7th, 2010!
World Health Day
Sincerely,
Tim Rogers, CEO
Tracy Colvard, Director of Government Affairs & Public Policy