Save the Date" postcards went out on time. Invitations followed. And finally, the big day arrived: Dressed in matching pale blue outfits, the nurses moved on Albany.

School, hospital and visiting nurses pressed legislators for changes to protect patients and nurses and to recruit and retain nurses in a field hurting from a growing shortage.

"You have to have the voice of the people in the trenches, so (lawmakers) know why these bills are so drastically important," said NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue. Her office oversees health care issues for the union, which represents about 15,000 health care professionals.

The nursing shortage is "the most profound issue" confronting the profession, according to Stephen Allinger, NYSUT's director of legislation.

Simone Scott, a member of the United Federation of Teachers, said "an ethical question" caused her to leave hospital nursing to become a visiting nurse.

"I was trying to pick and choose," she said. "The patient would be calling, calling, calling for a nurse and no one comes."

Staffing ratios need to be adjusted according to the severity of patients' conditions, said Renee Setteducato, a Lutheran Hospital RN and member of the UFT Federation of Nurses.

The union wants home care nurses added to a law enacted last year banning mandatory overtime for other nurses.

It is also supporting a measure to require a school nurse in every K-12 school building in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers and Syracuse.

School nurse Diane Lightfoote of the Glens Falls Teachers Association invited Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, D-Suffolk, to visit a nurse's office to see students being treated for a host of special needs or emergencies, plus required exams.

"We save parents money, and we help them determine further care," said Stacey Marye, school nurse member of the Whitney Point Teachers Association.

Syracuse school nurse Ann O'Hara said special health concerns, such as the recent swine flu episode that closed schools throughout the state, require more action and vigilance.

With violence against nurses increasing, nurses lobbied to add RNs and LPNs to a law that makes it a felony to injure an emergency medical professional.

Anne Goldman, special UFT nursing representative and chair of NYSUT's Health Care Professionals Council, described how two nurses recently were "beaten to a pulp" by a patient.

"The population of drug addiction and mental illness combined has become the newest and largest population on the floors," said Nancy Barth-Miller, a Staten Island Hospital nurse and member of UFTFN.

NYSUT is also advocating for a nursing quality care protection act that would require hospitals to disclose the number of RNs, LPNs and unlicensed personnel who provide direct patient care.

The union wants the state to establish a safe patient handling task force at the Department of Health to improve handling standards and replace manual lifting with safe techniques.

The chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, praised the nurses for their concern.

"The mission of nursing is not just dealing with the patient in front of you, but also dealing with the problems," he said. "Coming to Albany is an important part of that."