The National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association (NNOC/CNA), representing 2,000 registered nurses throughout the Cook County Bureau of Health Services system, will lead a rally and search party outside the 8th Ward Democratic Headquarters this Wednesday, February 7th.

NNOC/CNA, and a broad public coalition of patients, families and caregivers, is trying to find Cook County Commission President Todd Stroger so they can explain to him the tremendous human toll that will result from his proposed cutbacks in the public health budget, and deliver to him hundreds of letters written by students at Beethoven Elementary, who are slated to lose their school clinic. Petitions signed by thousands of other Cook County patients will also be delivered once Mr. Stroger is located.

The coalition will unveil a ten-foot high milk carton with a "Missing: Todd Stroger" message to help in the efforts to locate him.

What: Nurses, patients, and public rally, search party for Cook County President Stroger
When: Wednesday, February 7, 2006, 5:30pm (we will start assembling at 5:00)
Where: The 8th Ward Democratic Office, 8539 South Cottage Grove, Chicago.

The proposed 17 percent in healthcare cuts would destroy the legacy of universal care established by former Commission President John H. Stroger, Jr. and would close 16 clinics throughout the city, many of them school-based. The Mother/Baby Unit at Provident Hospital and the Sengstack Obstetrics and Pediatrics clinics would close and long-term care patients at Oak Forest Hospital would lose 150 critical care beds at the facility. Caregivers throughout the system would also be targeted for termination, depriving Cook County's 5.3 million residents of a primary source of healthcare.

NNOC/CNA is the nation's largest union of direct-care RNs, with some 70,000 members in all 50 states. Learn more at www.NNOC.net.