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Safe Staffing Bill Tops List on MNA State House
Agenda
The nursing shortage, an increase in medical errors,
mandatory overtime, decreased satisfaction of nurses with their
practice, a dramatic rise in injuries among nurses; What do these
hot-button issues in nursing have in common? They are all
related to the underlying and core issue of inadequate nurse staffing.
The State of California responded to this crisis
by becoming the first state in the nation to pass legislation in
1999 that mandates safe staffing levels in all health care settings.
Here in Massachusetts, the MNA has proposed similar legislation
for four years running, and in December, it did so again.
Passage of legislation to mandate and monitor safe
staffing levels in all health care facilities is priority one for
the MNA in 2001. In December, the MNA filed an impressive
package of bills to provide unprecedented protection for nurses
and patients in Massachusetts. The centerpiece of that package
is "An Act Relative to Sufficient Nurse Staffing to Ensure Safe
Care," which is a safe staffing bill sponsored by State Representative
Christine Canavan, RN (D-Brockton) and State Senator Robert Creedon
(R-Brockton) who both served as co-chairs of the Nursing Commission,
a legislative committee that spent the last year investigating the
current nursing crisis.
Recent nursing research, as well as a number of
media exposes, have made a clear link between decreasing nursing
staffing levels and unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios and the problems
of medical errors, unsafe patient care conditions and the nursing
shortage. It is not uncommon for medical/surgical nurses at a Massachusetts
hospital to be assigned between 9 – 12 patients on a shift, or nurses
working in long term care to be assigned 30 – 40 patients.
Home care nurses, who a few years ago were seeing 5-6 patients in
a day, are now being asked to see between 7-9 patients. And
in all of these settings, patients are more acutely ill and in need
of more nursing care.
"This bill is of paramount importance to the future
of the nursing profession in our state, providing the /most important
step we can take to protecting patients and protecting the integrity
of our nursing practice," said Denise Garlick, President of MNA.
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