Patients beware

By Kay McVay, R.N
San Francisco Chronicle
March 29, 2008

Editor - The fight for union democracy within the Service Employees International Union ("Mortal battle atop big labor union," March 27) has many consequences for patients. For years, I have watched the tragic decline in patient-safety standards at the bedside and in public policy when nurses do not have a voice as patient advocates.

That's why it is critical for R.N.s to have an ability to act in the interest of patients and not on behalf of their employers. That is an essential part of what is lost with the deals that SEIU President Andrew Stern has signed with hospital and nursing-home chains and with politicians like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Under Stern's nursing-home pact in California, for example, SEIU agreed to lobby against legislative reforms to crack down on patient abuses and to require safer staffing in nursing homes. The pact also granted management the unlimited right to erode patient protections and workplace standards for the employees.

When you silence nurses' voices, you silence the voice of the patients' last line of defense.

KAY McVAY, R.N.
California Nurses Association National Nurses Organizing Committee
Oakland