Press Release Source: California Nurses Association

Governor Arnold on California Nurses: 'I Kick Their Butts Everyday'

Tuesday December 7, 5:46 pm ET

RNs Blast Governor on Rolling Back Ratios and Deceptive TV Ads

LONG BEACH, Calif., Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- 400 RNs from 75 different hospitals across California, in an action sponsored by the California Nurses Association, picketed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today at his Conference on Women in response to his attempt to roll back safe RN staffing ratios and the recent misleading television ads about the issue. After the protests, Governor Schwarzenegger told the audience, "Pay no attention to those voices over there....They're just angry because I kick their butts everyday."

"For the Governor to denigrate nurses -- a historically female profession -- while speaking to an audience of women is an affront to women everywhere," said Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association. "We expect more from the state's top officer than just pre-pubescent comments and blatant pandering to corporate donors."

"In the past week, thousands of nurses have marched on the Capitol, and hundreds of nurses have followed the Governor to Long Beach, all in support of the safe RN staffing ratios that protect patients and their caregivers," DeMoro continued. "We will not let Arnold terminate safe staffing for RNs." Today's protest was joined by members of Service Employees International Union Locals 660 and 121 RN.

In early November, Gov. Schwarzenegger issued an executive order to roll back key provisions of the California law requiring safe RN hospital staffing. His edict was made at the specific request of the state's multi-billion dollar healthcare industry which is among the special interests that have contributed more than million to the governor in his first year. The California Healthcare Association, whose members are major donors to Schwarzenegger, thanked him for the attempted rollback by paying for the ads praising it.

The ads feature a hospital administrator posing as a bedside-nurse and arguing for the rollback of the staffing. Despite this, scores of scientific studies have documented the direct correlation between safe RN staffing and reduced patient deaths. In addition, the hospital industry is sponsoring Californians for Patient Care, a group purporting to speak for nurses but based in the offices of the corporate law firm that represented the hospital industry in a lawsuit that failed earlier this year to overturn the safe staffing law.

Source: California Nurses Association