Tens of Thousands Rally Against Bush/Spitzer Cuts
Tens of thousands of 1199SEIU members, doctors, healthcare industry administrators and their supporters marched and rallied in Manhattan yesterday to oppose the $1.2 billion in deadly funding cuts New York’s healthcare system proposed by Governor Elliott Spitzer and President George W. Bush.
Marchers proceeded under a canopy of clouds that eventually gave way to a steady rain, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the lively, blocks-long procession. Many marched in groups under the banners of their employers. In some cases, Union members, administrators and managers marched together, chanting “No More Cuts” and waving signs that advised Spitzer that “Some Cuts Don’t Heal” and “Patients Are Our Special Interest.”
“I don’t know what they’re going to take away from us. We need so much as it is right now,” said marcher Lucia Willis, an RN at St. James Health Care Center in Suffolk County. “Having cuts like this would affect patient care. It would affect staff and supplies. They should be going after the pharmaceutical companies. It’s absurd. We’re just trying to make a better life for people.”
The march concluded with a rally outside the midtown Manhattan office of Governor Spitzer. At the demonstration speakers talked about how the shortsighted cuts would harm quality patient care in New York.
Greater New York Hospital Association President Ken Raske vowed not to be bullied by Spitzer. “We’re going to push back,” he said. “These shortcuts don’t work. They only reduce respect and dignity.”
Other speakers included representatives from the clergy and the labor movement. Transit Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, who recently fought a battle for health care, pledged “to stand shoulder to shoulder with the health care workers of New York.”
1199SEIU Pres. Dennis Rivera fervently challenged Spitzer to a dialogue about real reform, not just slash-and-burn cuts. “Your only plan, Governor Spitzer, is to cut, to cut, to cut. That is not a plan. We urge you to do no harm to our hospitals,” Rivera said to raucous applause.
“Our members, other workers and our CEOs get up every day and wonder how we can have better outcomes for our patients. We need you to help those people.”
Paulette Forbes, an X-Ray technologist at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, urged demonstrators to continue the fight against the cuts. The consequences for some, she said, could be fatal. “No one should have to choose between their life and healthcare,” declared Forbes. “We must preserve our life support.”