Candidate Profile: Teresa Purcell, Running for 19th District House Position 1

Nine years ago, Purcell returned to Longview, buying the home she was raised in from her parents. Her time navigating the health care system to help her aging parents deal with heart issues, memory loss and other effects of aging, gave her a deep respect for the role nurses play. She views the role of nurses in the healthcare system as “essential.”

Purcell recognizes that many of the communities in the 19th District lag behind the rest of the state in economic opportunity, housing, safety, education and health. Purcell’s district includes Ocean Beach Hospital in Ilwaco, where WSNA represents the 30 registered nurses. She has stated her desire to address the health care issues rural communities face.

“In rural communities we have a crisis in being able to attract and keep health care providers, address appropriate mental health care issues, and preventative care,” Purcell said in her questionnaire. “Much of the innovation and investment that urban communities are experiencing related to prevention are not being realized in more rural parts of the state.”

Purcell has an extensive background as a lobbyist and public affairs consultant promoting health-related issues. In 1995 she co-founded Friends of the Basic Health Plan to combat attempts to roll back the tobacco tax. She has worked as the lobbyist for the American Lung Association, American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.

If elected, Purcell says she will to continue her work promoting health care quality access and affordability. “I would be committed to finding the best possible ways to meet those goals,” Purcell said in her candidate questionnaire. “We need to ensure that people are put before profits in the health care system.”

Purcell supports WSNA’s primary legislative issues around uninterrupted meal and rest breaks, limits to mandatory overtime, stronger staffing policies, more support for public health services, legislative solutions to the nursing shortage, increased scholarship and loan repayment funding, and support for mental health services.