Nurses Staffing levels are dangerously low USA

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 16 Apr 2004 - 0:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Staffing levels in the USA are dangerously low, it seems.

When Cathy Caruso went back to nursing in 2001 after a 10-year hiatus spent raising her kids, it was clear to her things had changed for the worse.

As a nurse at MetroWest Medical Center in Natick, Caruso said, she routinely had to care for seven patients at a time, a level many nurses consider unsafe. Caruso resigned within a year to take a lower-paying job as an elementary school health teacher.

"If one person had a bad day or a bad turn, and required my attention, that meant six patients weren't getting my attention," she said. "(I was) very concerned for what wasn't being done for the rest of my patients."

That's why Caruso and many others want the state to require what they call safe nurse-to-patient ratios. The Massachusetts Nurses Association argues hospitals are understaffed, increasing the risk of patient complications and deaths.

Hospitals don't have to publicly report their per-shift staffing levels, but it's no secret there's a nursing shortage. The latest recorded vacancy rate was 8.5 percent statewide, according to the Massachusetts Hospital Association.

Two very different pieces of legislation that attempt to solve the problem have set the stage for a battle between nurses and hospital executives. The debate could affect the way hospitals are operated for decades to come.

Nurses support a bill, similar to one enacted in California, that would mandate ratios of no more than four patients per registered nurse in medical and surgical areas, and no more than two patients per registered nurse in intensive care units.

If ratios were mandated, many former nurses would consider coming back to hospital work, solving the nurse shortage problem, proponents say.

Another bill, recently filed by Committee on Health Care Co-Chairman Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, aims to increase nursing schools' faculty and help hospitals recruit and retain nurses. The bill would not require specific staff levels, but would force hospitals to report staffing plans to the state.

Hospital executives, who say the ratio bill is inflexible and would prevent them from using licensed practical nurses to meet ratios, tend to support Moore's approach to tackling the nursing shortage.

"We need to make this profession more interesting and bring people on board," said Ruth Walton, chief nursing officer at MetroWest Medical Center.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association is "generally supportive" of Moore's bill, even though it would require hospitals to disclose their nurse-to-patient ratios.

"It seems like a fair tradeoff," said Paul Wingle, spokesman for the MHA. "We have to give a little to get a lot."

To read the full article go to:
http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/health/view.bg?articleid=30878

• Additional
• References
• Citations