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Massachusetts Nurse :: September
2005
The real difference: a patient load limit
By Charlie Stefanini
There is much discussion over the two competing
bills that address the current nursing crisis and its effect
on patient care. But
when you strip down the two bills, everyone agrees about plans
to increase nurse faculty in our colleges and universities. Everyone
agrees about plans to maintain a pipeline of nurses into the
profession. There is really just one simple difference between
the nurses’ bill
and the hospitals administrators’ bill: nurses believe there
should be a limit on how many patients a nurse can be forced to
care for at one time and the hospital administrators do not.
To alter this dangerous course the nurses’ bill, H.2663,
sets a patient safety standard:
- It’s straightforward: It listens to nurses who are at patients’ bedsides
and who say they can’t take adequate care of those patients
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It’s common sense: It ensures that by limiting the number of patients a
nurse can care for, all patients will receive better care.
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It’s simple: It requires hospitals to meet a minimum nurse staffing
level based on nurse-to-patient ratios.
The hospitals’ bill sets
no limit on how many patients a nurse can be assigned at one time. Their
plan 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.
We must
act now! If we don’t, patients will continue to suffer harm needlessly
and nurses will continue to leave the bedside—making this problem
insurmountable in several years as the baby-boomer generation demands
more health care services
and a large segment of the nurses in the workforce begin to retire. We
need to listen to nurses when they say, “Safe ratios save lives.” Because
they are the people on the front lines of patient care.
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