(WESTERN NEW YORK) - The president of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) - considered New York's largest Union and professional association for Registered Nurses (RNs) with more than 37,000 members, including 2,000 here in Western New York - tells WNYLaborToday.com that New York's plan to cut $1 billion from the State Budget in the realm of Health Care "won't make the state anymore fiscally responsible" and "just makes a bad situation worse."

Tomorrow (Monday, March 8th), NYSNA representatives will be joined by 300 RNs and a number of Union representatives and elected officials during a rally that will be held in West Capitol Park in Albany to protest $1 billion in proposed cuts to Health Care that are currently contained in the Executive State Budget.  The rally also kicks off a high-profile, multi-media NYSNA campaign to educate the general public across the state.  It features a variety of ads that will appear in newspapers and on television and billboards in major markets statewide.

NYSNA representatives say hospitals, nursing homes and public health programs face a combined reduction of more than $562 million in payments for services and $250 million in increased assessment on services delivered, which have the potential to severely limit access to care and endanger patient safety.  In addition, proposed cuts will slash funding by $143,100 to programs targeted to expand State University at New York nursing education, and severely diminishing the state university system's ability to meet the needs of the nursing workforce over the next decade, Union officials maintain.

"An under-funded budget equals under-staffed facilities and one-billion dollars in cuts is hypocrisy.  They could take out one-billion and it doesn't make them anymore fiscally responsible.  This is going to cause New Yorkers a lot of pain and it's just making a bad situation worse," NYSNA President Karen Ballard (pictured above) told WNYLaborToday.com during a telephone interview from New York City (Editor's Note: Ballard's remarks that she will deliver at tomorrow's rally in Albany have been reprinted further down in this story).

Ballard is also worried about the increasing and daily patient loads that already over-worked RNS are dealing with.  She said reports have RNs around the state being responsible for as many as 16 patients a day - which, she added, "is atrocious."   She fears $1 billion in Health Care cuts will further tax the state system and have nurses looking to retire, which will put a further and overall strain on the system in the form of an increased statewide nursing shortage.

"Many (nurses) are staying in their jobs due to the tough economic times.  Many don't believe it's a good time to retire, but when they get that opportunity, (with the pressure of a continually increasing daily patient load) they will," Ballard told WNYLaborToday.com.

Much like what CSEA (Civil Service Employees Association) and PEF (Public Employees Federation) in New York State have done, NYSNA has also met with a number of state-elected officials in order to show them where money could be saved in the existing state budget when it comes to Health Care.  For example, Ballard pointed to substantial cost-savings by having New York purchase bulk pharmaceuticals, which would lower drug costs, for their employee Health Care Plans.  Another $200 million could also be saved by the state cutting back on its hiring of private consultants, she said.

"This really makes sense," Ballard, a Niagara University graduate, said.  "These cuts would not result to any danger to the system or the general public.  (Elected leaders) say they'll look at it, but you don't know 'how much' they'll really look at it.  Hopefully, our public (ad) campaign will help people understand this situation." 

Those expected to join NYSNA President Ballard at the rally are: National Federation of Nurses President Barbara Crane; Rod Rocca, president of NYSNA's Delegate Assembly; AFSCME (American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees) Local 436 President Judith Arroyo; as well as a number of hospital and medical center CEOs from across the state.

On another front, NYSNA - which supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining - is commending the State Assembly's passage of a bill to reform the composition of the State Hospital Review and Planning Council (SHRPC) and to open up their deliberations to greater public input.

"The State Hospital Review and Planning Council (SHRPC) should be an avenue for the broadest possible input into the Health Department's decision-making processes," said NYSNA CEO & RN Tina Gerardi in a prepared release. "Unfortunately the narrow composition of SHRPC and lack of opportunity for public input have led many to question its decision-making ability."

Under the legislation, SHRPC would be expanded to 39 members and would include employee representatives and Health Care consumers.  The bill would also require SHRPC to allow public comment at their proceedings.

The need to reform SHRPC became evident following the Department of Health's effort to rush through emergency regulations to mandate the influenza vaccination for Health Care workers, NYSNA representatives said.  The Union opposed the regulation as both an infringement on Workers' Rights and an ineffective means of preventing the transmission of influenza from workers to patients.

Without adequate input from nurses and other Health Care professionals, concerns of those on the front line of health care were not heeded.  The Department suspended the regulation in October following multiple problems with implementation and a shortage of the vaccine.

"Direct care providers and healthcare consumers could provide invaluable input during the development and implementation of regulations," NYSNA's Gerardi said. "If this legislation is enacted, New York will have a Health Care rule-making process that is both more open and inclusive, enabling us to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."

Editor's Note: The following are NYSNA President Ballard's remarks that she is scheduled to deliver tomorrow at NYSNA's Albany rally:

My name is Karen Ballard, and I am a registered nurse and the president of the New York State Nurses Association.  On behalf of New York's nurses and the patients they serve, I stand before you to say that the Health Care Cuts in Governor Paterson's proposed budget could devastate our Health Care System and endanger patient care.

The Nurses Association appreciates the complexity of allocating public funding during such dire financial times.  However, the state's fiscal crisis cannot be allowed to result in an unprecedented Health Care crisis.

$1 billion in proposed cuts to Health Care that include hospitals, nursing homes and home care services have the potential to severely limit access to care and endanger patient safety.  This struggle is not about our jobs, but is instead about the type of care that we are able to provide to New York's frailest and most vulnerable citizens.

Reducing provider reimbursement rates and increasing taxes will prompt facilities to compensate for these shortfalls by reducing direct care staff, primarily nurses.  And because New York State lacks regulation to ensure safe staffing ratios, the nurses that are spared will continue to be forced to take on more patients than they can safely care for.

As a rule, hospitals often have functioned with less staff and resources than is required to safely do the job.  This is evident at facilities like St. Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers where nurses must begin their day fielding phone calls instead of caring for patients because the hospital can no longer afford a receptionist.

A hiring freeze at Coler and Goldwater Specialty Hospitals and Nursing Facilities has lead to increased patient infection, as the nursing staff struggle to treat scabies and bedsores that are result of unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios.  Protest of Assignments, which document the nurse's belief that the patient assignment is unsafe, are up to 75 a month at the facility.

The most recent example is that of St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center in Greenwich Village, an acute-care facility now struggling to stay open.  For more than 150 years, St. Vincent's has built its reputation on providing care for New York's poorest citizens.  Deeply rooted in public health, the facility has served the state through countless calamities - from the cholera epidemic of 1849 to the attack on September 11^th - and is an anchor for AIDs treatment and psychiatric care on the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

While the struggle to save St. Vincent's is the latest example of the poor state of our Health Care System, under the governor's proposed budget there will likely be many more in communities across the state.  Asking our hospitals and nursing homes to sustain further cuts to vital health services will stretch an already overburdened workforce to its breaking point.  Should the proposed budget be approved, the frequency and severity of these unsafe patient care situations will escalate with devastating and sometimes deadly results.

Our public health infrastructure in New York has been tested time and again with response to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and most recently with the outbreak of the H1N1 virus.

It is our nurses who answer questions in the field from concerned citizens seeking care.  Ensuring capacity of our emergency rooms, hospital beds and acute-care facilities is essential to maintaining the public's welfare in times of crisis.  One need only look to recent catastrophic events to realize that we must protect our public health infrastructure and shore up our network of resources for when we may need them the most.

Nurses understand that the state is facing deteriorating economic conditions and revenue shortfalls.  But we do not believe that patient safety and the future of New York's Health Care System should be sacrificed in order to close the current budget gap.

The question that we ask the Legislature today is what is the value of a person's life?