Clinical Practice

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

Pearl Moore's Editorial
Editorial on Nursing Shortage and Quality Cancer Care.

ONS Calls for Legislative, Regulatory Action to Win War on Cancer

ONS President Paula Trahan Rieger, MSN, RN, ANP, CS, AOCN^®, FAAN, unveiled the aggressive and comprehensive ONS Health Policy Agenda for the 107th Congress on June 19. Rieger called on federal policy makers ensure access to quality cancer care for all patients, reduce suffering from cancer, reduce and prevent tobacco-related disease, and ensure that the nursing workforce is well educated, adequately compensated, and sufficient to meet future needs.

Rieger addressed the nursing shortage and quality cancer care before members and staff on Capitol Hill, including the House Cancer Caucus and Senate Cancer Coalition, and laid out a point-by-point plan to help win the War on Cancer. She urged Congress to

Ensure access to clinical trials.

Protect patients with cancer in managed healthcare plans.

Enact legislation that ensures the nursing workforce is well educated, adequately compensated and sufficient to meet the needs of the future.

Double the National Institutes of Health budget by 2003.

Provide $5 billion for the National Cancer Institute.

Make available additional funding for critical cancer-control efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Grant the Food and Drug Administration absolute authority to regulate tobacco products.

Ensure access to cessation therapies to help those currently addicted to tobacco to quit.

Increase funding for tobacco-use prevention and cessation efforts.

Provide adequate and appropriately structured reimbursement for nursing services.

Provide prescription drug coverage for the nation's seniors.

Make available access to quality cancer early detection.

Prohibit discrimination against people with or at risk for cancer.

Support nursing research and evidence-based practice.

Rieger emphasized that ONS will work with policy makers at local, state, and federal levels to advance policies that reduce and prevent suffering from cancer.