The Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals announced a campaign Tuesday to put people above profits.
The union announced legislative priorities including support for a state-run 25-bed Level I acute care mental health facility in the northern part of the state to help accommodate patients displaced when Tropical Storm Irene flooded the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury.
The politically active nurses’ union joined with the Vermont Workers’ Center at the Statehouse to announce the campaign.
Mari Cordes, president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, said the union will focus on its mission of providing high quality care and ensuring adequate staffing.
The union and the Vermont Workers’ Center are pushing legislation that would ensure safe staffing ratios for dialysis patients, bills that would expand the admitting and signature privileges of nurse practitioners, a bill to allow child-care workers to bargain collectively, and a bill to clarify a mandate that health insurance companies cover midwife services.
The union will also negotiate a new contract with Fletcher Allen Health Care in a few months.
Cordes took the state’s largest hospital to task for initiating a hiring freeze during 2009 and 2010 when its CEO received more than $1 million in compensation.
Cordes and others expressed support for the health care reform effort with the ultimate goal being universal health care.
“We want full universality and full access,” Cordes said. “Vermont does not need an insurance product for consumers. Vermont needs a strong health care system for people. It needs a strong and visionary community academic medical center not a profit organization that happens to be in business of health care.”
Peg Franzen, president of the Vermont Workers’ Center, said the group, which created the “Health Care is a Human Right Campaign,” continues to lobby for workers and patients.
“We’re working not only to improve working conditions but to dramatically improve patient care and have a powerful voice pushing for health care for all,” Franzen said.
