Rally promotes bill ordering safe nurse-to-patient ratios
By
Bryan G. Pfeifer
Boston
Published Jul 22, 2005 6:45 PM
Hundreds of nurses and
health-care activists from across New England rallied at the Statehouse here on
July 13 to demand that legislators pass state legislation mandating safe
nurse-to-patient ratios.
The one-day action, sponsored by the
Massachusetts Nurses Associ ation union, was a continuation of mass state-wide
actions in an effort to pass House Bill 2663, “An Act Ensuring Patient
Safety.” (www.massnurses.org)
Similar to state-mandated
nurse-to-patient ratio legislation won by the California Nurses Association, the
MNA-supported bill would order safe staffing levels based on specific hospital
location and specialties. In intensive care the bill calls for one nurse to two
patients, while in medical and surgical units the nurse-to-patient ratio would
be one to four.
The MNA represents over 22,000 nurses and other
health-care workers at 85 facilities in Massachusetts. The third-largest state
association in the United States and the largest in Massachusetts, the MNA is a
member of the American Association of Registered Nurses.
Nurses took over
the Statehouse wearing blue T-shirts reading “Safer ratios save
lives” and testified before the Public Health Committee, which discussed
the safe-staffing legislation. As MNA executive staff and rank-and-file workers
spoke at the podium in support of the bill, nurses and their allies held aloft
placards declaring: ”Registered nurses say: Ratios save lives.”
The MNA continues to gain broad support most evident by the Coali tion to
Protect Massachusetts Pati ents, an alliance of 93 health and patient groups
that support H2663. Coalition members include Arise for Social Justice,
Communication Work ers Local 1365, Community Church of Boston, Boilermakers
Local 29, Electrical Workers Local 2222, Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459,
Jobs with Justice, Laborers Local 429, plus the Massachusetts chapters of Asian
AIDs Prevention Project, Federation of Teachers, Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy
Coalition and the Steelworkers union.
Over 100 legislators also support
this bill. This is largely due to MNA pressure and the massive support for the
bill from poor and working-class people.
In response to this widespread
public support for the safe-staffing bill, the Massachusetts Hospital
Association, a bosses’ industry council representing 85 private and public
hospitals in the state, is attempting to ram through a bill of its own. The MHA
bill has no mandates and is filled with language aimed at co-opting points in
H2663 without enforcing them. Hospital bosses and their stooges in the
legislature spoke on behalf of this bill at the Public Health Committee July 14.
In response to this bill, the MNA states on its website:
“It’s full of empty promises. Hospitals cannot be counted on to
adequately staff registered nurses because doing so cuts into their
profits.”
“Their plan,” the response continues,
“asks us to trust that they will do something in the future that they have
already failed to do in the past. It is up to the state to put patient safety
before profits by enforcing minimum nurse staffing levels.”
A
system-wide crisis
A study by the Opinion Dynamics Corporation, an
independent research company, released at the Statehouse rally, establishes that
90 percent of RNs surveyed say patient care is suffering due to understaffing
and speed-up conditions with devastating and even deadly results for
patients. (www.opiniondynamics.com)
According to the MNA, in Mas
sachusetts there are adequate numbers of certified registered nurses to fill all
the needed positions but many won’t or can’t work because of the
abysmal working conditions. And many nurses simply burn out after working
32-hour weeks for only a few years or less.
The ODC survey found
that:
* More than one-in-three nurses report patient deaths directly
attributable to having too many patients to care for
* 77 percent report
an increase in medication errors due to understaffing, a 10 percent increase
over 2003
* 59 percent report readmission of patients due to
understaffing.
“These results represent an indict ment of the
hospital industry and demonstrate without a doubt that hospital administrators
are not putting patients first—they are putting them in harm’s
way,” said MNA President Karen Higgins, herself a registered
nurse.
Other recent studies by ODC have found that:
* 78 percent of
doctors surveyed in early 2005 think staffing levels of registered nurses in
Massachusetts are too low and 82 percent agree that the quality of patient care
in hospitals is suffering because there are not enough registered nurses working
in the hospitals
* 79 percent of patients and their loved ones say that
the quality of patient care in general is suffering in Massachusetts because
nurses are being forced to care for too many patients at once
* 83 percent
of patients and their loved ones overwhelmingly support passing a law mandating
safe-staffing ratios to address understaffing.
Not backing
down
With this evidence and with poor and working-class public support
behind them, the MNA will not stop until the safe-staffing bill is passed and
signed into law by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Declared Higgins: “The
time has come to pass the nurses’ bill and end the suffering of our
patients.”
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