NYAPRS Note: ADAPT activists continue their direct action with NYSNA into Wednesday, insisting on an amendment to the Nurse Practice Act in order to be able to fully implement the Community First Choice Option. CFC enables persons with any disability diagnosis to receive in-home community supports to help keep them in the community and out of institutions. As the article below indicates, the impasse may be yielding today, as advocates begin to turn to legislators for the amendment in their final days of budget negotiations.
Standoff Continues at Nurses Union
Times Union; Dennis Yusko, 3/25/2014
Disability rights activists Tuesday said they had taken over most of the New York State Nurses Association’s building, but may relinquish at least part of it if they and the nurses union agree on language allowing health aides to do some work performed by nurses.
About a dozen members of ADAPT — American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — camped out in the nurses association’s Cornell Road building in Latham for a seventh day and night as part of their push for changes to New York’s Nurse Practice Act. The occupiers want “advanced home health aides” to be permitted to undertake some jobs presently done by nurses so those with disabilities can stay and receive care in their homes.
Discussions between the protestors and union officials reached an impasse Monday, but progress was reported late Tuesday, when the union said in a statement to the Times Union that it had drafted a proposal creating the title of advanced home health aide. It said nurses would lobby Albany leaders Wednesday for the change.
“Our proposal involves changes to state regulations relating to the assignment of ‘health-related tasks’ in the home care setting, in place of the proposal introduced in the budget legislation which would have put patients at risk by allowing untrained workers to practice nursing,” the association’s statement said. “ADAPT has raised important and valid concerns about access to care and the ability of all New Yorkers to live independently in their own homes, and we feel that our proposal fully addresses these concerns.”
The union had previously said it opposes changes to the Nurse Practice Act because they could open the door to less-skilled health workers doing nurses’ jobs in hospitals and other settings.
Bruce Darling, an ADAPT organizer and spokesman, said the disabled activists from Rochester and Binghamton were prepared to leave part of the union’s building while it continues discussions with the nurses association and monitors state Assembly action on the Nurse Practice Act.
“It’s now up to the Assembly to do the right thing,” Darling said.
http://m.timesunion.com/local/article/Standoff-continues-at-nurses-union-5349183.php