Calling All Nurses, Healthcare Professionals (and Everybody Else)

Must read post on the California Nurses Association - National Nurses Organizing Committee blog about the attendance of 1,000 of their members at a special debut screening of Michael Moore's Sicko (trailer above) in Los Angeles. The nurses gave the film AN EIGHT MINUTE STANDING OVATION when it ended. Now they're calling for nurses and other healthcare professionals all over the nation to see the movie when it opens in other cities (including Albuqueque) on June 29th, distribute information at the screenings about reforming the system (which they will supply) and come up with other actions to draw attention to issue.

... calling all nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals.  We need you to join the “Scrubs for SiCKO” campaign.  Sign up with us, we’ll send you literature to hand out opening night June 29th. Bring a buddy, and help solve this healthcare crisis by advocating for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model.

As the Scrubs for Sicko site says:

Michael Moore’s latest film, “Sicko” brings to cinematic life and details in unsparing and vivid imagery the everyday experience of all nurses as they care and advocate for their patients in the confines of a health care industry that long ago abandoned its caring mission in favor of the pursuit of profit at any cost.

Nurses experience first hand the pain and terror of every patient and their families as they are forced to confront a callous and uncaring health care industry when at their most frail and vulnerable, and the inevitable personal tragedies when they can't receive needed care due to escalating costs and the ‘care containment’ damage endemic to the industry’s medicine-by-spreadsheet credo. 

It is nurses, of course, who are there to bear witness to these horrendous moments every day of every shift in every hospital across the U.S., and who are often the last and best hope for these patients and families.

Get Involved With Healthcare Reform in NM
Of course, the timing for such an effort couldn't be more right in New Mexico, where Governor Richardson's health care task force and legislators are currently mulling the results of Mathematica's study of three options for improving healthcare coverage in the state. Only one of them -- which Mathematica has said would actually SAVE the state money -- would offer genuine universal, single-payer coverage. That plan is the Health Security Act.

For more information on actions you can take to urge real reform in New Mexico, check out these websites:

• Health Action New Mexico
• What If You Knew

Health Action New Mexico will be holding town hall meetings around New Mexico this summer to explain Mathematica's findings and build support for changing our healthcare system so that it serves ALL our citizens. New Mexico's Legislative Health and Human Services Committee will also be holding meetings this summer to develop legislation on healthcare based on the Mathematic report. If you care about healthcare, please consider attending.

Be sure to read Health Action New Mexico's lastest newsletter (pdf) for more info on what's going on this summer, including critical meetings scheduled for later this month.