The action by registered nurses began November 6 at the largest of the city's eighteen municipal hospitals, Bellevue, as almost 90 percent of the nurses called in sick.

The next day, as Bellevue was returning to normal, nurses at three other hospitals staged a similar action, and there were widespread expectations that the protest would spread to all facilities. The sick-out subsided, however, after meetings between the New York State Nurses Association and the Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Bellevue nurses interviewed by the Militant agreed that there was one, and only one, issue: More registered nurses are desperately needed.

"Conditions have been very poor," explained one RN. "We don't have enough staff for the number of patients. Nurses have left, and we haven't gotten people to replace them."

A spokesperson for the Health and Hospitals Corporation confirmed this. Before a hiring freeze went into effect last January, there were more than 6,200 RNs in the citywide system. Now the number is 5,800, after dropping steadily for almost a year. That figure is almost 3,000 short of what is required by standards set by the American Hospital Association.

But that's not the whole story. "We've been having to do a lot of things we aren't supposed to," said one middle-aged RN, "because we don't have enough people in many of the jobs."  
 
November 20, 1950
Contrary to his assurances of two months ago, Truman has ordered the release of the $62,500,000 handout voted by Congress for the Spanish fascist butcher, Franco. The Economic Cooperation Administration announced on Nov. 15 that "at the direction of President Truman" the "United States loan aid for Spain will get under way immediately."

It will be none too soon for the shaky Franco regime, which has bankrupted Spain and brought the Spanish workers and peasants to the verge of starvation. With the U.S. dollars Truman has so opportunely released to him, Franco will be able to reinforce the brutal terror which has kept his prisons and concentration camps overflowing.

At the time Truman said he would impound the Franco loan, the Sept. 4 Militant categorically predicted that "at the moment Truman feels the coast is clear he will unfreeze the loan."

The principal obstacle was the UN resolution of 1946 which barred Hitler's Axis partner from any UN agency and urged its member nations to withdraw their major diplomatic officers from Madrid. It would have been embarrassing, in view of the accusations Washington was making about North Korea and the Soviet Union, for the U.S. to take "unilateral" action in support of Spain.

But how many UN members-nations dare to resist Washington's threat of withholding loans and EGA aid? It was no trick at all for the U.S. State Department to line up a 37 to 10 vote in the Special Political Committee of the UN General Assembly to reverse the 1946 policy. Thus, Truman now props up bloody Franco under cover of "UN sanction."  
 
 
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