Michigan Nurses and Doctors Organize Local "Call to Action"

Following the lead of our Massachusetts colleagues, Michigan nurses and physicians are issuing a "Call to Action" on health care. Our relationships with our patients are being ruined and obscene profits are being made by a few.

Our principles:

1. Medicine and nursing must not be diverted from their primary tasks; the relief of suffering, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of health. The efficient deployment of resources is critical, but must not detract from these goals.

2. Pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune have no place in care giving.

3. Potent financial incentives that reward overcare or undercare weaken doctor-patient and nurse-patient bonds, and should be prohibited. Similarly, business arrangements that allow corporations and employers to control the care of patients should be prohibited.

4. A patient's right to a physician of choice must not be curtailed.

5. Access to health care must be the right of all.

Over 2,000 nurses and physicians in Massachusetts signed on. In late November or early December this call and their names will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

We see this as an effort to stop for-profits and reopen the political conversation on universal coverage and as a message from the trenches!

The first meeting of the "Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care - Michigan Chapter" was held on Thursday, August 7, 1997. Physicians and nurses from Detroit and Ann Arbor participated. The Michigan chapter is now involved in organizing for a December 2 town meeting/teach-in at Wayne state University. Mark your calendar!

For more information or to become invloved with the committee, please call 313-867-2992 between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM or 313-531-2136 after 8:00 PM.

The group is now planning for a massive mailing and petition drive to get health care professionals signed on to the "Call to Action" and to participate in the December public meeting.