BOSTON (AP) — A union representing Massachusetts nurses is pushing a ballot initiative designed to set limits on the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse at any one time. The question would also require hospitals to adjust nurses' patients assignments based on the severity of the medical needs of those in their care, the Massachusetts Nurses Association says. Union officials say patient limits can reduce the number of mistakes, serious complications and preventable readmissions. Massachusetts has no law that established the maximum number of patients a nurse can safely care for at any one time, said Donna Kelly-Williams, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
Dozens of registered nurses rallied against cuts they say would cripple emergency services at Harlem's St. Luke's Hospital. Protesters said the hospital's ER is in danger of losing its status as a Level One trauma center — and as a result, it would lose the resources to treat the the most severely wounded or injured people. "That would be devastating to this community," said Jill Furillo, executive director of the New York State Nurses Association. "Patients will die." Continuum Health Partners, which owns the hospital, is in the midst of a merger with Mt. Sinai, a move that would form one of the largest network of hospitals in the country.
It was supposed to be the first look at next year's budget proposal for Parkland Memorial Hospital. Instead, the hour-long meeting Tuesday with the Dallas County Commissioners turned into a gripe session about staffing problems at the county hospital. Ted Shaw, Parkland's interim chief financial officer, said there were more than 800 job openings at the hospital, many of them nursing and clinical positions. Nursing turnover is running more than 18 percent annually, he said, which forces Parkland to rely on temporary or contract nurses. "Our goal is to get below 10 percent," he added.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A push to increase the number of nurses per patient at New York's 185 acute care hospitals pits promises of fewer patient deaths and complications against a billion dollars or more in annual health care costs. Advocates say required staffing of one nurse for every two intensive-care patients and 1-to-4 ratios in regular medical-surgical units will improve patient care, reduce deaths, complaints and readmissions and leave hospitals financially intact. Jared Birnbaum is a registered nurse who works overnight shifts in the emergency room at the 650-bed Westchester Medical Center, a regional trauma center. After 3 a.m., he says he's typically among five or six nurses for both the adult and pediatric emergency rooms, where one serious trauma patient can require three nurses.
Jan Powers, a clinical nurse manager in the pediatric oncology unit at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, remembers how hard it was for her team after the death of a child. They met with an art therapist, who brought clay. "There was a lot of pounding and kneading, and while we made our pots and whatever, people started to talk," she said of the session last summer. "When your hands are occupied and you're not in the spotlight, it's easier to say things like 'I feel really bad' or 'This child touched my heart and I'm grieving.' It gives staff a chance to create out of something that is hurtful and painful."
Nurses, dentists and psychologists asked the Illinois Legislature this spring for more authority to make medical decisions with demand expected to surge under the federal health care law, but each time lawmakers sided with doctors and turned them down. It was a resounding victory in Springfield for the Illinois State Medical Society, which has represented doctors in a longstanding turf battle over how to address a growing shortage of medical services in rural and low-income urban neighborhoods across the state. Nurses and other medical providers argued they could help ease the burden if given more control, but in lobbying hard to defeat or gut those proposals the doctor's group argued they lacked proper qualifications.