FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sam Fettig
(c) 612-741-0662
sam.fettig@mnnurses.org
Lauren Nielsen
(c) 651-376-9709
lauren.nielsen@mnnurses.org
Last session, Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act won support of Governor Walz, House and Senate DFL caucuses
(St. Paul) – November 9, 2022 – Nurses with the Minnesota Nurses Association today celebrated the electoral success of pro-nurse candidates who have pledged to put Patients Before Profits in our healthcare system. Nurse-endorsed candidates won big in races for statewide executive offices Tuesday – including the reelection of Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, and Attorney General Keith Ellison – and won key races for control of the Minnesota House and Senate.
“These election results have sent a clear message to the hospital CEOs with million-dollar salaries pushing corporate healthcare policies: enough is enough. It is time to put patients before profits in our hospitals,” said Mary C. Turner, RN, President of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “From Northern Minnesota to the Twin Cities and across the state, elected officials are on our side in the fight to hold corporate CEOs accountable to the needs of nurses and patients at the bedside.”
Understaffed and overworked nurses are leaving the profession due to hospital CEOs’ failure to solve the problems in our hospitals. But in negotiations for new contracts and at the State Capitol, hospital executives and their high-powered lawyers and lobbyists have refused every effort by nurses to solve the problems their own corporate healthcare policies created.
Minnesota nurses are ready to build power with the newly elected pro-nurse majority to solve the crises of staffing, patient care, working conditions, and retention corporate healthcare executives have created in our hospitals. Last session, the Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act won the support of Governor Tim Walz, and the DFL caucuses in both the Minnesota House and Senate.
Nurse-endorsed candidates elected at every level have pledged to work with nurses on key priorities, including:
- Support for the Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act, to give nurses a seat at the table when staffing levels are set, to address the crisis of care and retention hospital executives have created in our hospitals
- Opposition to the Outsourcing Care Compact, which would move care away from Minnesota nurses and patients at the bedside
- Support for workers’ collective bargaining rights, including opposition to so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws
For more information on MNA’s endorsed candidates and endorsement process and criteria, visit NursesCareNursesVote.com.
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