Sen. Boxer Supports Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act of 2005, S. 351

[paineinthearse]

Received by email

Subject: Senator Boxer Supports Nursing Regulations
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:12:19 -0800

I thought you would be interested in the following message.

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Dear Friend:

Several studies have shown that when nurses are being forced to
work too many hours with too many patients, there is a sharp
drop in the quality of the care they are able to deliver. A
study by University of Pennsylvania researchers in 2002 showed
that when a nurse is assigned more than four post-surgery
patients, the risk of death goes up 7 percent for each
additional patient. All studies point to the need to
reasonably limit both the hours and the number of patients a
nurse cares for.

Nurses are increasingly required to work back-to-back shifts,
or add hours on top of long shifts because understaffed
hospitals use mandatory overtime policies as a regular way to
staff their facilities. Consequently, many nurses have left
their jobs, disillusioned by their inability to provide quality
care, and this in turn has made a difficult problem even worse.

To address this issue, I joined several other Senators in
introducing the Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act of 2005, S.
351. This bill would place limits on mandatory overtime for
nurses, protect nurses against retaliation in the workplace,
and provide for civil money penalties for violations of such
provisions. By limiting the mandatory overtime worked by
nurses in our hospitals, we can help to prevent medical errors
and improve patient care.

I hope this information is helpful to you. If you have any
questions or concerns about this or any other matter, I hope
you will contact me.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

[Warpy]

1. Barbara Boxer gets the point

Let's hope she's on any committee that comes up with universal health insurance when we get rid of the stench in Washington known as the Repuglican Party.

As for solving the nursing shortage, they're going to have to do something about the JOB. It's a job with longer hours than any other (12 hour shifts with mandatory extra 12 hour shifts), physically demanding and mentally exhausting work. It's also the first place bean counters try to cut costs, if not by short staffing, then by saddling already overworked nurses with chores like secretarial work, housekeeping chores, lab work, and some jobs better performed by respiratory and physical therapists.

In the meantime, hospital stays have shortened, meaning only the sickest of the sick are hospitalized, increasing the burden on nurses who used to be able to count on one or two stable patients who were convalescing to lighten the overall load. Some technology has helped, most has hurt.

When you have a group of essential workers and you treat them like shit for decades, don't feign surprise when younger workers choose other fields, ANY other fields, to go into.

This legislation Boxer is proposing is one step in the right direction. However, there is a lot to be done to make the job an attractive one that people will want to go into.