Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. STEVENS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to voice support for my friend Representative Susan Wild's bipartisan Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, a bill that establishes training programs for healthcare workers to prevent suicide and burnout.

As I am here in Congress today, I think of my constituents back home in Michigan who are in the midst of another COVID-19 spike, who are in our hospitals telling us they are full, who cannot provide care in the way they have been trained and taught and in the way they would like to. These spikes leave us exhausted. They leave our healthcare workers all the more stressed.

People are being pushed to the limit. Since the start of this pandemic, Michigan's healthcare workforce has become fragile. We have lost workers due to the stress of this pandemic, yet this bipartisan legislation that brings us together here today will provide support to the workforce.

Michigan healthcare workers deserve this. They are working and are continuing to work on the front lines of this pandemic. It is time to change how our healthcare industry approaches mental health. We must step up to provide a more reliable culture and supportive infrastructure for healthcare professionals to count on for years to come.

It took a pandemic for us to get this Dr. Lorna Breen bill, and we will not forget our healthcare workers. We will continue to stand up for them.

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