Nurses protest hospital closings

Times Union ^ | February 16, 2013 | Kristen V. Brown

[george76]

Members of the New York State Nurses Association gathered at the Capitol on Saturday to protest the closure of community hospitals.

The group also opposes a plan for an "experimental" for-profit hospital pilot program laid out in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget proposal.

The protest, in front of the state Department of Health headquarters in the Corning Tower, comes on the heels of a vote earlier this month to close Brooklyn's cash-strapped Long Island College Hospital, which is run by SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and the news that Brooklyn's bankrupt Interfaith Medical Center will merge with another hospital.

...

New York state bars for-profit hospitals not run by individual operators. But the pilot program detailed in Cuomo's proposed spending plan would allow for two corporations to operate hospitals in the state — one in Brooklyn, and one elsewhere.

"We've kept for-profit hospitals out of New York and that's been a smart move, because they fail miserably," said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez a Bronx nurse who is first vice president of the union. "We don't think they can save our hospitals. We want to keep them out of New York."

NYSNA had originally planned to protest in front of the governor's mansion, but moved the location after having a "productive dialogue" with Cuomo's office .

[JohnBrowdie]

hospitals don’t exist for the improvement of nurses, they exist for the improvement of sick people.

[Gen.Blather]

How do you operate a for-profit hospital when the law dictates you must take in everybody regardless of ability to pay? How do you operate a for-profit hospital when the prices you can charge are dictated by regulations and not by the market?

[fwdude]

Good. Let ‘em protest and lose their livelihoods. I’m exceedingly happy that they are. This is the ultimate fruit of liberalism in a hyper-liberal state. I wish I were around there to rub it in their faces.

Let ‘em wallow in their own feces.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

"We've kept for-profit hospitals out of New York and that's been a smart move, because they fail miserably," said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez a Bronx nurse who is first vice president of the union. "We don't think they can save our hospitals. We want to keep them out of New York."

Well, then, Sweetie, I think you're going to have a lot more unemployed nurses in New York. At some point, if everything is "non-profit" or owned by the state, there will be no freakin money to pay you!!

[Dudoight]

This makes me laugh!

[Steely Tom]

How do you operate a for-profit hospital when the law dictates you must take in everybody regardless of ability to pay? How do you operate a for-profit hospital when the prices you can charge are dictated by regulations and not by the market?

I'm guessing that the answer includes as one factor the answer to this question: "am I a friend of Governor Andrew Cuomo."

Here the word "friend" is interchangable with the expression "big campaign contributor."

[Gay State Conservative]

Although I've been out of health care for some time I worked shoulder to shoulder with nurses for 20 years in a large hospital.Thanks to that experience I'm willing to bet the clothes on my back that 80% (or more)of nurses voted for Osama Obama.Both times.

[wac3rd]

75% of this nurses union went to Dems in 2012 per Open Secrets.

[TEXOKIE]

The ANA is in league with the AFT. The sad part is that it seems to very rare that the ANA is challenged during the nursing training programs.

http://www.nursingworld.org/HomepageCategory/NursingInsider/NFA-Affiliation-with-AFT.html

[TEXOKIE]

“...seems to BE very rare...”

[MrB]

Ah... they “fail miserably” according to these nurses...

They fail because the government forces them to fail.

[Earthdweller]

"75% of this nurses union went to Dems in 2012 per Open Secrets."..

To qualify..there are only four states that have Nurse unions, California, Michigan, NY and Massachusetts and they all pulled out of the SEIU in 2008.

So, effectively, there are no viable national Nurses Union. They say there are 2.5 million Nurses and .5 are in unions, but I'm sure the states I mentioned would cover most of that .5 figure easily.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Sounds like the same sort of lemming-think I noticed among my UAW neighbors in Michigan.

If we’re not getting what we want, we must not be demanding it loud enough. Scream louder!

[buckalfa]

"How do you operate a for-profit hospital when the law dictates..."

It is rather easy. You pay low wages, you dictate to physicians, you strong arm suppliers on cost, you provide the minimum quantity and quality of care, you operate in states with little or no rate control, you collect bills better than anyone else, and you push the envelope to the max on every rule and regulation possible. The Rick Scott (HCA) model of corporate medicine if you will. Yet the model works and until the ACA, has been the operating standard for almost all hospitals. For profit hospitals have allowed countless rural and small city communities to keep their access to care.

[GeronL]

"We've kept for-profit hospitals out of New York and that's been a smart move, because they fail miserably," said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez

Communities hospitals are closing and they oppose for-profit ones because those "fail miserably".... do these people ever think about thing before they come out of their mouths?

[SaraJohnson]

Just as public education exists to funnel money and power to socialist politicans, union workers and social engineers so that they can dumb down and corrupt America’s children and families; obammycare exists to transfer wealth and power to politicans, union workers and social engineers to totally control, abuse and kill the public.

Nice country while it lasted. : (