Nurses across the nation headed to the movies in bright red scrubs in support of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore’s new movie “SiCKO,” an inside look at universal health care.

Through what they’re calling the “Scrubs for SiCKO” campaign, nurses and physicians from organizations including the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), Physicians for a National Health Program, the New York State Nurses Association and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, rallied around movie screenings across the country in support of single-payer health care.

The group, which has already rallied in Sacramento, California; Washington, D.C.; New York City; Philadelphia and New Hampshire, encouraged all health care professionals nationwide to attend the movie’s official opening on June 29 wearing red scrubs and handing out flyers in support of two pieces of legislation: HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, and SB 840, the California Universal Healthcare Act.

Liz Jacobs, RN, spokesperson for CNA/NNOC, explained that the organization’s focus on guaranteed health care dates back to the mid 1990s when HMOs came onto the scene.

“Changes were made that negatively affected quality care,” she said. “That’s when we embarked on a campaign called Patient Watch where we took out full-page ads in national newspapers asking people to let us know how they suffered from unsafe conditions at the bedside. We got hundreds of stories and as a result began pushing for nurse-to-patient ratios, which we finally got.”

Jacobs added that the group’s affiliation with Moore came about when the controversial director was working on a different movie about health care conditions. He contacted CNA/NNOC again when he began working on “SiCKO” because he knew of the organization’s work promoting HR 676 and SB 840.

“He called to say he’d like to partner with the nurses as the movie rolled out because of the things we have in common,” she said. “He didn’t come out and say single-payer, but he’s showing how all these industrialized countries have national health care, but we in the United States have the highest infant mortality rate, people live less, die younger and we pay twice as much for health care. We rank number 37 in the world, right above Slovenia, in health outcomes.”

Joining the other participating organizations, CNA/NNOC is making its presence known at film screenings across the nation, representing nurses’ roles in the advancement of health care. At every screening, the nurses are on stage with Moore representing what he called “the backbone of health care,” according to Jacobs.

“It is really a very powerful marriage of using the power of movies to reach a wide, far-reaching audience and actually having a grassroots organizing force on the ground to deliver not just a message but actually a solution,” she said.

“We’re really hoping, especially in California, to gather momentum and real support to get the message out to people that wouldn’t normally understand what single-payer is all about,” she added. “The action component is not just to see the movie but to write to the legislation in California in support of SB 840 and nationwide in support of HR 676.”