While drug thefts have long been an issue in hospitals and nursing homes, health officials are taking new steps to address the problem. The Minnesota Hospital Association and state Health Department are organizing a coalition of hospitals and licensing boards to identify and close loopholes in drug-handling protocols that make it easier to steal. "People are starting to realize that this is a serious and ongoing problem," said Keith Berge, who chairs the Mayo Clinic's medication diversion prevention committee. "They're starting to recognize what they've been seeing. I think we've been seeing this all along and not recognizing it for what it is." In perhaps the most dramatic recent case, a nurse anesthetist in Minneapolis was accused of taking most of the painkiller intended for a patient undergoing kidney-stone surgery in November. A criminal complaint said the nurse told the patient to "man up" as he endured the worst pain. Opioid pain relievers such as fentanyl or oxycodone are the most commonly stolen prescription drugs, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
In the last four decades, the number of nurse practitioners has risen to more than 140,000. And more and more are working on their own, especially in poor inner-city neighborhoods and rural areas, where there are few doctors in private practice. The scope of what nurses can do medically has also been growing for the past decade, at a time when the pool of primary care, or family doctors, has been shrinking. And now the need for professionals to do basic family medicine has never been greater. In 2014, when key provisions of the federal health care reform law kick in, it's estimated 32 million Americans who currently have no health insurance will be able to buy coverage. And the experts tell us that's going to make the shortage of primary care physicians worse.
Registered nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester voted overwhelmingly yesterday to ratify a new three-year contract with the hospital, which is owned by Vanguard Health Systems Inc. Negotiators for Saint Vincent and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents the nurses, reached agreement on the contract on May 4, averting a strike that had been called for the following day. Under the contract, patient ratios will be reduced to four to five per nurse on the day and evening shifts and no more than five on the night shift. Patient ratios are currently up to six on days and evenings and up to seven at nights.
Negotiators for Tufts Medical Center and the Massachusetts Nurses Association agreed on an 18-month contract extension early this morning, only hours before 1,100 registered nurses were set to walk off their jobs at the Boston teaching hospital. The tentative deal, reached after 15 hours of bargaining yesterday and overnight, avoided what would have been the first nurses strike at a Boston hospital in 25 years. The nurses association withdrew its strike notice and scheduled a ratification vote for May 19. While it did not resolve the parties' dispute over the union's demand for mandatory staffing levels, the key sticking point in the contentious talks, the contract extension contained language preventing Tufts from assigning more than five patients to a single nurse on the day or evening shift for the life of the pact. The hospital agreed to limit patient assignments to no more than six on the night shift and two in intensive care units during the next year and a half.
Two Illinois lawmakers led a group of nurses and medical professionals in Springfield urging Illinois to join a national group that would allow nurses to practice freely across state lines. Sen. Pam Althoff, a McHenry Republican, and Rep. Sandra Pihos, a Glen Ellyn Republican, said joining the Nurse Licensure Compact would allow nurses from Illinois and other states to offer care more easily in person or by remote technology to people across the border. There are currently 24 states in the compact, which waives the requirement to be licensed in individual states.
Unionized nurses and management at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester agreed to a new three-year contract yesterday, averting a strike that had been called for tomorrow. Yesterday's deal increases the pressure on Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where management and the nurses union plan to resume contract talks today in a last-ditch effort to prevent a strike there tomorrow. Talks at both hospitals, and at others across the state and nation, have centered on staffing levels. The parties at Saint Vincent, who had been negotiating on and off for nearly a year and a half, reached a settlement after a six-hour bargaining session. Under the new contract, patient ratios will be reduced to four to five per nurse on the day and evening shifts, and no more than five on the night shift. Patient ratios are currently up to six on days and evenings and up to seven at nights.