Rock Island Today

Bradley Fritts, House Rep. of Illinois House of Representatives, Illinois General Assembly said on Oct 3rd during a House committee hearing by the House Labor & Commerce, Health Care Licenses committee.

"I want to be interactive for a moment. By a show of hands, how many here care about patient care quality? Everybody. How many care about healthcare workers? Everybody. How many care about their hospital’s bottom line? Everybody’s hand should be up on that as well because all three of these things are interconnected. Without coming to that bottom line, you don’t have a hospital that’s there. You don’t have anyone signing paychecks. You don’t have anyone employed. All these things are interconnected and it means all of us there are on the same team whether we understand it and realize it or not. I’m one of the only members here — although some are here on Zoom — that represents rural districts. Rural medicine right now is incredibly scary."

"I represent five hospitals in my area and I went to visit each and every one of those five hospitals and every single one of them is struggling. And what’s the biggest factor in that? We heard it here today. Medicaid reimbursement rates. My area is very much concentrated on older people and underserved people. "At the end of the day, we have to advocate for that increase in reimbursement.""We’re all on the same team and that’s how we need to go about this."

Rep. Brad Fritts was elected to represent the people of the 74th House District in November 2022. He is a lifelong Illinois resident who attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural and Consumer Economics in May of 2021.

Lawmakers held the four-hour-long hearing to hear testimony from various healthcare workers, including unions, nursing homes, hospitals, and other facilities to address what changes need to be done for the industry.

"Some of these nursing home workers have 20 patients. On third shift, it might be one CNA to one floor," said Denise Stiger, the union organizer for Teamsters Local 743. "So, that means she is doing the whole floor. Even though they're saying that the patients are asleep at night, they still have to be changed. They still have to be cleaned."