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By Connie Helmlinger
Connie Helmlinger is the periodicals manager at the American Nurses Association.
The American Nurses Association has successfully lobbied Congress for passage of legislation—the Health Professions Education Partnerships Act of 1998—that will reauthorize the Nurse Education Act (NEA) programs for five years. In addition, the budget package passed for fiscal year 1999 includes an increase of nearly $2.5 million for NEA funding over the previous year’s funding, bringing the new total to $67.85 million.
“The ANA is extremely pleased by the strong support of Congress for this important measure,” ANA President Beverly L. Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, said of the reauthorization. “Without this type of program to support graduate level and basic nurse education, we would enter the twenty-first century ill-prepared to provide adequate health care to aging baby boomers and their grandchildren,” Malone stated.
The ANA had asserted that without the continuation of the NEA programs, the current nursing shortage in the nation’s underserved areas would be further exacerbated. The NEA provides the majority of federal funding for nurse education, the largest of the health professions. The graduate-level programs funded by NEA enroll approximately 30,000 students annually.
The Health Professions Education Partnerships Act of 1998 consolidates current nursing programs into three new categories for receipt of federal funds: advanced practice registered nursing education and training programs; programs to increase nursing workforce diversity; and projects to strengthen basic nursing education. The last group will assist in programs such as services in schools and community settings, care for underserved populations and high-risk groups, practice in managed care and quality improvement, and development of cultural competencies.
The ANA’s work on the issue of school violence, as well as the contributions of school nurses to this topic, prompted the invitation of a state nurses association member to the White House Conference on School Safety. Elaine Brainerd, MA, RN, CSN, director of the ANA/American Nurses Foundation National Center for School Health Nursing, attended the summit at the White House on October 15.
At the summit, President Clinton announced a series of initiatives to curb school violence, including a $65 million program to help local communities hire 2,000 new police officers to stand guard at high-risk schools. While he reported that the overall crime rate in schools has dropped since 1983 and that most schools are safer than the community at large, he still called for the new initiatives as necessary to address the areas of the country hardest hit by school violence. Toward that end, the police will be hired to work at the 10% of public schools, largely in urban areas, that have been most affected by violence.
On the eve of the elections for the 106th Congress, ANA President Beverly L. Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, joined President Clinton and other health care advocates at the White House to decry the previous Congress’s lack of action on the Patients’ Bill of Rights and to stress the need for the new Congress to enact the legislation. That morning, the White House released a report from Vice President Gore showing that all federal agencies have implemented consumer bill of rights legislation, upon which the Patients’ Bill of Rights was based, as far as they can administratively. Legislation is needed to expand patient protections to the private sector.
“Congress went home without acting on legislation that would have provided comprehensive, enforceable health care protections for the American people,” Malone stated at a Rose Garden press conference. Malone was one of three nurses who served on the President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, which crafted the Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. “We need to make sure that when the new Congress meets in January, all of its members got the message in November: Americans are looking to the Congress to bring about genuine reforms and protections for their health care system.
“Nurses at the bedside know exactly what happens when care is denied or comes too late or is inadequate. For those nurses, the need for patient protection and patient advocacy is played out every day,” Malone told the president. “We will continue to work with you to enact a strong bill of rights for our patients.”
The Clinton administration also plans to offer $25 million to assist 10 communities in coordinating new violence-prevention projects in such areas as mental health, conflict resolution, and mentoring. Clinton pledged to ask Congress for $12 million to provide immediate and long-term counseling in communities hit by violence.
On October 14, hundreds of nurses volunteered for their chosen candidates for local, state, and national offices as part of the ANA’s national effort to get nurses more involved with the November elections. The first-ever Nurses Campaign Activity Night (Nurses CAN) was created to encourage nurses to form working relationships with elected officials in order to educate them about the critical issues in today’s health care delivery systems. Nurses were encouraged to contact their chosen candidates, identify themselves as nurses, and volunteer on the campaign. Nurse volunteers visited voters with candidates, made phone calls, and stuffed and labeled envelopes. For more details, see the November–December 1998 issue of The American Nurse.