Quality Cancer Care Clinical Resource Area - ONS Responds to Nusing Shortage

On June 19, ONS went to Washington with a singular purpose. We wanted to rally influential lawmakers to help us present our case for legislation to offset the growing nursing shortage and to make quality cancer care a more certain reality for patients.

The event was a decided success. Joining us were 65 attendees, including Representative Lois Capps and Representative Sue Myrick --both of whom are cancer survivors--and staffers from the offices of Representatives Bachus, Barton, Bilirakis, Levin, Moloney, Neal, Portman, Radanovich, Rivers, Sandlin, Shimkus, Snyder, Stark, Tierney, Wexler, Wynn, and Young. Staffers representing Senators Feinstein, Graham and Lugar also attended.

Representative Capps spoke in moving terms of her experience with breast cancer, her sister's current fight with the disease and the death of her daughter from lung cancer. Representative Myrick's talk was equally as impassioned as she recounted her experience with breast cancer. The support these women bring to support cancer legislation clearly reflects their remarkable and hope-filled life situations.

In a sense, Representative Capps made two contributions to the briefing. Attendees saw her again as we viewed the videotape documentary produced jointly by ONS and US oncology, "America's Oncology Nurses" and listened to her introductory message.

Luana Lamkin, RN, MPH, current ONS Board Treasurer, described the nursing shortage in first-person, down-to-earth ways that only an experienced hospital administrator could describe. And Susan Leigh delivered a remarkable, experience-filled presentation as a three-time cancer survivor.

Besides putting a face on the nursing shortage and quality cancer care, we also recommended a specific legislative and regulatory agenda to alleviate the nursing shortage and assure quality cancer care in the United States. Paula Trahan Rieger, RN, MSN, AOCN^® , CS, FAAN, current ONS President, laid out a step-by-step plan and called on Congress to:

• Enact legislation that ensures the nursing workforce is well educated, adequately compensated and sufficient to meet the needs of the future: By enacting the "Nurse Reinvestment Act" (HR 1436/S 706), the "Nursing Employment and Education Development" (NEED) Act (S 721), and the "Nurse of Tomorrow Act" (HR 1897).
• Provide adequate and appropriately structured reimbursement for nursing services: So that Medicare and private payers are adequately reimbursed for the full range of services oncology nurses provide.
• Support nursing research and evidence-based practice: This is a must to take the work of oncology nurses beyond the anecdotal.
• Provide prescription drug coverage for the nation's seniors: As provided by the "Access to Cancer Therapies Act" (HR 1624/S 913).
• Protect patients with cancer in managed healthcare plans: By passing the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards "Bipartisan Patient Protection Act" (S283).
• Double the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by the year 2003: By providing $23.7 billion to the National Institutes of Health.
• Provide $5 billion for the National Cancer Institute (NCI): To allow the nation to take advantage of extraordinary cancer research opportunities.
• Make available additional funding for critical cancer-control efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Provide $315 million for CDC's comprehensive cancer control, cancer registries, breast and cervical cancer screening, colorectal cancer education and outreach, and prostate awareness efforts.
• Grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) absolute authority to regulate tobacco products: By enacting the bipartisan "Tobacco Authority Amendments Act" (HR 1097) that provides the FDA with meaningful authority over tobacco.
• Ensure access to cessation therapies to help those currently addicted to tobacco to quit: By enacting the "Medicare, Medicaid and MCH Tobacco Cessation Promotion Act" (HR 1229/S 854) to help individuals in the Medicare, Medicaid, and state-based Maternal and Child Health (MCH) programs to quit tobacco use and improve their short-term and long-term health.
• Increase funding for tobacco-use prevention and cessation efforts: With states allocating the CDC recommended amount of their tobacco settlement for such endeavors, and Congress providing $130 million to the CDC for tobacco control, cessation, and prevention efforts at the local, state and national level.
• Make available access to quality cancer early detection: With passage of the bipartisan "Cancer Screening Coverage Act" (HR 1809/S 868) and the Kennedy-Helms "Eliminate Colorectal Cancer Act" (HR 1520/S 710).
• Ensure access to clinical trials: By enacting the bipartisan "Access to Cancer Clinical Trials Act (HR 967) to provide all patients with cancer in private healthcare plans access to potentially lifesaving therapies through clinical trials.
• Prohibit discrimination against people with, or at risk for, cancer: By enacting the "Genetic Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act" (HR 602) that would prohibit health plans and employers from discriminating against individuals with a history of cancer, genetic predisposition to cancer, or a family history of the disease.

Most important, the legislative briefing in Washington introduced the Oncology Nursing Society as an assertive voice to be heard and reckoned with in national discussions on healthcare.