Current Initiatives

• Supporting the PHS Chief Nurse
• The Military Coalition Expresses Concern about Stalled PHS Transformation

Supporting the PHS Chief Nurse

A dozen nursing organizations and two former PHS Chief Nurse officers have written to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt asking him to upgrade the position of the PHS Chief Nurse Officer from Rear Admiral (Lower Half) (0-7) to Rear Admiral (Upper Half) (0-8). The Secretary, who can do this without congressional approval, was urged to act now by promoting the current PHS Chief Nurse Officer.  Click Here for the Letter! (pdf, 1.12 MB)

The Military Coalition Expresses Concern about Stalled PHS Transformation

The Military Coalition, a consortium of some 35 uniformed services and veterans organizations representing some 5.5 million current and former members of the seven uniformed services, their families and survivors, recently expressed concern about the stalled transformation of the PHS Commissioned Corps. The issue is one of the top three items on TMC's personnel and Compensation Committee's list of legislative priorities for 2006.

The Coalition will advocate development and implementation of a billet-based force management system enabling the PHS Commissioned Corps to define annual end strength requirements, and centralization of the Corps' organization, policy development, billets and operations under the Office of the Surgeon General -- especially for crisis response functions.

This legislative goal for the PHS Commissioned Corps was included in TMC's legislative goals following the historic response of the Commissioned Corps incident to hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in the late summer of 2005. While the Corps responded magnificently to unprecedented tasking before, during, and after the hurricanes, the crisis underscored the need for better organization and training for the Corps in order to more effectively respond to future public health emergencies.

The inclusion of Commissioned Corps' transformation in TMC's 2006 top legislative goals is tacit recognition by the Coalition of the prominent role defending the public health occupies in national security.

pdf version (pdf, 21 KB)