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Bay Area health and fitness expert Joanie Greggains joins Casey and Shayne this week on Nurse Talk. Joanie is now a regular on Nurse Talk with her weekly segment “Fit Happens” and her monthly house calls to the Nurse Talk studio to answer listener questions. Wow, does she know what she’s talking about! In just the 45 minutes she was with us I learned so much, including that if I don’t trim down it’s not only bad for my health (of course we all know that), but soon my airline tickets will cost more because they are starting to charge by the pound! Can you imagine?
“Well, sister, I am so sorry I can’t make it to the family reunion this year but my airfare would be over $5k one-way!”

And….a little combination of world news with an oh-so-slight medical twist. While Kim Jong Un, the 28-year-old petulant third generation dictator of North Korea, struggles to find his “inner and outer” power, our crack research team at Nurse Talk decided to check into his country’s healthcare system. Universal Healthcare???? Yip, universally horrifying healthcare. Not a surprise.

But this is very interesting – at least to us…Have you ever wondered about what a business or an organization has to provide in order to acquire and keep a not-for-profit (aka nonprofit) status? Read more…

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Have you ever wondered about what a business or an organization has to provide in order to acquire and keep a not-for-profit (aka nonprofit) status? Well the truth is most of us don’t really think about it…but we should because some of those nonprofit entities, such as hospitals, are not really held to account with respect to their end of the bargain. Now, we are not saying any of these businesses are not doing a good job and are not operating above board, but a recent study (conducted by California Nurses Association) shows some major hospitals may not be providing enough “charity” care to the communities they are suppose to serve.

Our guest, RN and Director of Government Relations for CNA, Bonnie Castillo will talk about a new bill, AB 975 that aims to press California non-profit hospitals to fulfill their charity care obligation in exchange for the substantial public financing they receive through their tax-exempt status. It  passed its first hurdle last Tuesday in the California Assembly Health Committee, overcoming opposition from California’s biggest hospital corporations and its allies. The bill won broad support in the committee hearing from nurse members of the California Nurses Association who attended the hearing in a sea of red scrubs. Read more…

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Our guest, RN and Director of Government Relations for CNA, Bonnie Castillo talks about a new bill, AB 975 that aims to press California non-profit hospitals to fulfill their charity care obligation in exchange for the substantial public financing they receive through their tax-exempt status. It  passed its first hurdle last Tuesday in the California Assembly Health Committee, overcoming opposition from California’s biggest hospital corporations and its allies. The bill won broad support in the committee hearing from nurse members of the California Nurses Association who attended the hearing in a sea of red scrubs.

And Bay Area health and fitness expert Joanie Greggains joins Casey and Shayne this week for her monthly house calls to the Nurse Talk studio to answer listener questions…including this one about facial fat transfers… Read more…

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Why should anyone care about legislative bills that have to do with healthcare and staffing? Sounds boring? Not so fast! AB 975 Charity Care? Check it out. Or maybe SB 631 Observation Study? You don’t want to end up in a hallway at the hospital for over 24 hours do you? Listen as we check in to see what the California Nurses Association has been doing lately to fight for nurses and their patients.

We have with us Stephanie Roberson the lead lobbyist for CNA working in the Governmental Relations department in Sacramento, Calif. Stephanie has been working with the nurses since 2007. Read more…

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Check out Mary Maxwell from Caregiverstress.com—doing what she does best—giving great advice. Love it!

We all know good things happen to bad people or is it bad things happen to good people? Well anyway a few weeks ago over 4000 people were on a lovely Gulf of Mexico Carnival cruise—which turned into a major disaster. The crew and passengers were left to fend for themselves and, boy, things got as bad as things can get. It’s also kind of amazing that we haven’t heard much, if anything, about this in the aftermath? Hmmmm. Our medical records should be so private!! Oh–of course they are–HIPAA!

Casey: “The crazy part of that whole thing? Who was making these incredibly stupid decisions, it seemed to have gone from bad to worse. God help the nurse on that cruise!”

Shayne: “Well Casey it is our lucky day because earlier this week we caught up with one of the ship’s nurses. Lets listen…”

Shayne: “Well, Casey, this feels like another 5 minutes of our lives wasted.”

We do have a great show this week. We are joined by California RN Sherri Stoddard, a veteran nurse with 31 years of labor and delivery on her resume. Read more…

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We check in with RN and Friend of Nurse Talk, Deborah Burger. Deborah is also co-president of National Nurses United. She’ll talk about California Proposition 30 endorsed by the California Nurses Association and supported by Governor Jerry Brown. Prop. 30 would raise from $6 billion to $9 billion every year, mostly through a small increase in taxes for the top income brackets, starting at households making $250,000 or more per year, as well as a temporary one-quarter of a cent increase in the state sales tax—with the revenue going for healthcare, education, childcare and other critical services. Read more…

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Welcome to Nurse Talk where laughter is the best medicine. A salute to our Republican friends and relatives—and we do have them. This week’s show has a little Mitt Romney. We think he’s singing AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL? Oh dear lord.

We promise when the Democratic Convention rolls around we’ll give equal time to President Obama’s singing! Just a little fun on this sunny summer day.

AND—hey—what about that West Nile Virus?! Well, a listener in Utah wants to know if she should get her family face and head nets to keep them safe. Well now lets stay calm. Casey and Shayne will share the low-down on the facts about this nasty virus—what it is, where it comes from—and simple steps to save yourself the money it would cost to buy those face and head nets.

Also—get ready for a little policy talk with California Nurses Association Director of Policy, Michael Lighty. Or—closer to the truth—get ready for some very disturbing facts and findings from a report that cites the huge profits hospitals are making by virtue of their non-profit status. Private not-for-profit hospitals, which dominate the California hospital landscape, rack up tax exemption benefits of close to $2 billion a year beyond what they return to communities in charity care, according to the report. Read more…

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We also visit with San Leandro Hospital RN Carol Barazi about Sutter Corp’s announcement to close yet another hospital in the Bay Area—this time in San Leandro—which serves the East Bay. Of the 27,000 patients seen in the San Leandro emergency room last year, more than 60 percent came from East Oakland, patients who will now need to drive many miles over crowded freeways for care. In news reports, a registered nurse from Highland Hospital in Oakland, who lives in San Leandro said, “I’m hearing from Sutter that they think it’s okay to close San Leandro, because they can send the patients to Highland. I’m here to tell you that we have a 50-bed ER and we are full.” Again—closure of a hospital that serves the “underserved.” Read more…

Bay Area Sutter RNs Begin One-Day Strike
Hospital Giant Seeks Massive Cuts Despite $4 Billion in Profits
Nurses to Also Protest Sutter Plans to Close Hospitals, Cut Care

Registered nurses are on strike today at eight hospitals that are part of the wealthy Sutter corporate chain to protest Wall Street-type demands for more than 100 sweeping reductions in patient care and nurses’ standards and workplace conditions.

The nurses, members of the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, offered to call off the strike if Sutter agreed to withdraw the concession demands.

Some 4,500 RNs, as well as respiratory and radiology techs, are affected by the walkout at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter Solano in Vallejo, Novato Community Hospital, and Sutter Lakeside.

Despite making over $4 billion in profits since 2007, and paying its chief executive Pat Fry $4.7 million a year (or $2,260 per hour), Sutter is demanding big cuts for its RNs, many of which would pose risks to patient safety. Among Sutter’s demands are proposals that would effectively force nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing already fragile patients to infection and further complications; thousands of dollars in increased costs to nurses for health coverage for themselves and their families; forcing many nurses to work in hospital units for which they do not have clinical expertise, posing a risk to patients, and huge cuts for nurses who work part time schedules. Read more…

Facing possible extinction for the first time in four years, the single payer bill SB 810 pulled through, passing the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday on a 5-3 vote, state Sen. Mark Leno’s office reported. Up until a couple of days ago, committee chair Sen. Ed Hernandez had been undecided, putting the bill in jeopardy. But intense pressure from single payer advocates across the state and a massive phone campaign finally secured a “yes” vote from Hernandez. In addition, hundreds of single payer supporters descended upon the Capitol in Sacramento to attend the hearing.

Leno’s office released the following statement after the vote:

“California is being overrun by out-of-control health care costs, which has a significant impact on the state budget, businesses and families,” said Senator Leno, D-San Francisco. “Our single payer plan not only guarantees universal coverage for all Californians, but also contains health care costs, which is essential to solving our state budget crisis in the long term.”

SB 810 creates a private-public partnership to provide every California resident medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits and allows patients to choose their own doctors and hospitals. This single payer, “Medicare for All” type of program works by pooling together the money that government, employers and individuals already spend on health care and putting it to better use by cutting out the for-profit middle man.

Read more…