ARNOLD SHOWS HIS LOYALTIES ON HEALTH CARE.

Byline: Deborah Burger

WHEN Californians elected Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, it's a good bet many voters were drawn to the image of a governor who would do battle with the special interests who hold sway in Sacramento.

By the time Gov. Schwarzenegger used the occasion of the recent Governor's Conference on Women and Children in Long Beach to denounce registered nurses as a ``special interest ... who don't like me because I kick their butt every day,'' a lot of Californians had already come to the conclusion that the perception did not match the reality.

For Schwarzenegger it is, perhaps, a short leap from simulated violence on screen to a boast of stomping on a female-dominated profession. But from the calls we've received at the California Nurses Association, it's clear that many people were less than enthused by an attack on the caregivers whom patients depend on when they are at their most frail and vulnerable in a hospital bed.

The occasion for the aggressive remarks was a protest by RNs objecting to the governor's decision to roll back patient protections in hospitals with a November executive order essentially revoking safe RN staffing rules in emergency rooms and postponing safer care in general medical units.

Thousands of RNs across California have objected to both the order they believe will compromise the patients to whom they have dedicated their lives and the governor's view of nurses.

As one RN wrote in a letter to the governor following his remarks:

``I didn't become a nurse because it was prestigious or it paid well or it was easy, because often it is none of those things. I became a nurse because I like helping people. In my life I have missed some of my son's baseball games, my daughter's parent-teacher conferences and other events a mom usually goes to because I was scheduled to work and I would not put my patients at risk for lack of staffing.

``It is with pride that I can say despite all the times I came home late, all the events that I had to miss, all the weekends I had to work, all the aggravation my family knew about that my daughter has decided to become a nurse.

``I am one of the least 'political' people I know. I have never written a letter to the governor or even to the editor of a newspaper. I'm not part of any 'special interest' group. I am a happily married, working mother of two children and I'm a nurse. I am offended by your comments about nurses and your apparent lack of respect for the profession and for us as people.''

This is the group upon whom the top officer of our state has elected to heap scorn.

Equally telling is who this governor considers ``special interests'' - nurses - and who he does not - in this case some of the state's largest corporations, which donated up to $250,000 each to sponsor the conference and were rewarded with corporate logos adorning the hall and private photo sessions with the governor.

In his first year in office, Schwarzenegger accepted $26.6 million in corporate contributions, according to the records of his political team. The donors were rewarded with an outspoken champion for corporate interests. Nowhere has that been more evident than in health care policy.

In addition to his order cutting the patient safety net in hospitals, at the request of the multibillion-dollar hospital industry, Schwarzenegger led the campaign to oppose a ballot measure that would have extended health insurance coverage to over 1 million uninsured Californians, and vetoed a number of important health and safety bills.

Schwarzenegger's health care vetoes include:

--More notice prior to hospital and emergency-room closures and assistance to local communities that want to keep open private hospitals facing closure.

--Assistance for Californians and California agencies that seek to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada at a time when high drug costs are a national scandal.

--Help for families faced with financial ruin due to exorbitant hospital bills.

--Requiring health plans to pay for maternity care (so much for family values).

--Expansion of nursing education slots in community colleges.

--Requiring hospitals to have policies to reduce crippling back injuries for RNs and other caregivers.

California families deserve a fighter in Sacramento, but one who is willing to take on the vested elite, not the sick and the poor.