Against the spirit of ratios

U.S.A. California

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pickledpepperRN

4,491 Posts

Well, they got this wrong. The law is for meal breaks, not bathroom breaks. The only exception is if the nurse must leave the unit to go to the bathroom.

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/health/3306480/detail.html

Nurses Rally Against Hospital Industry Lawsuit

Registered Nurses From Around California Gather At State Capitol

UPDATED: 12:28 pm PDT May 14, 2004

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Registered nurses from around the state gathered at the state Capitol Friday to rally in protest of a lawsuit filed by the hospital industry that would undercut nurse staffing requirements.

A rally was held on the Capitol's west lawn to be followed by a march to the Sacramento County Courthouse, several blocks away.

The California Healthcare Association, which is the lobbying arm of the hospital industry, is hoping to make changes to a state law that defines nurse-to-patient ratios.

The hospital industry says rules like one that requires a temporary nurse to fill in when a staff nurse is on a bathroom break are overkill.

But nurses say the industry is putting money before patient care.

"We're worried about patient care ... they're worried about a dollar ... sometimes patient care has to win out over the dollar," Mercy General Hospital nurse Kathy Dennis said.

"Everybody eventually will end up in the hospital, and whether have a nurse to provide that care will make sure that you'll be able to leave that hospital alive," California Nurses Association spokeswoman Deborah Burger said.

California is struggling with a nursing shortage.

A Census Bureau survey shows that the state has the second-worst ratio of nurses per capita in the nation. Nevada has the worst ratio.

Copyright 2004 by TheKCRAChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

pickledpepperRN

4,491 Posts

Do our patients get well when we eat our lunch?

As I said in the previous post the California Nurses Association WROTE the law! Bathroom breaks were not the intent. With a charge nurse who does not have a patient assignment there will be the extra nurse available and familiar with patients if an unexpected health emergency occurs when a nurse is on break. The lawsuit wants to change the past practice of nearly THIRTY YEARS in ICU and NICU requiring 1:2 ratios AT ALL TIMES.

They want to begin the shift with the safe ratio then have NO obligation to meet it for the next 12 hours.

I remember when they tried this: No scheduling a nurse for a patient slated for open heart surgery because, "The patient is on telemetry now." Tele was not staffed for that patient because, "The patient is going to the OR."

Admits come in, post arrests, and ICU nurses have up to five patients so the CABG patient can be a 1:1.

http://www.gilroydispatch.com/news/newsview.asp?c=108051

Nurses march to Capitol

Friday, May 14, 2004

By Eric Leins

GILROY - On Friday, nurses from around the state will tuck away their bedside manner and put on their activist caps.

Several hundred nurses are expected today to march from the state Capitol to the Superior courthouse in Sacramento, where a key hearing will be held on a hospital industry lawsuit.

If successful, the lawsuit could throw out certain nurse-to-patient staffing requirements, such as one nurse per every four patients in emergency rooms. Specifically, the California Healthcare Association wants a judge to reinterpret a provision in a fledgling hospital staffing law that requires certain nurse-to-patient ratios to be met "at all times."

Nurses from hospitals such as Gilroy-based Saint Louise Regional worry that administrators who are focused on a facility's bottom line may be trying to make the law too lenient.

"If you don't meet your nursing ratios at all times, you put nurses in a position where they won't take their lunches and breaks," said Donna Fischer, a registered nurse at Saint Louise. "I think the public is better served and safer when you have nurses that are fresh."

Work kept Fischer from attending the march today, however the veteran nurse sided with the leading nurses advocacy group, the California Nurses Association.

The group says a reversal of the new law would disregard "hard won patient protections.

"The law was the result of severely misguided priorities in the healthcare field that put the bottom line before patient safety," said Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Association, a group that represents 57,000 nurses across the state.

Meanwhile, hospital advocates say the California Nursing Association is bending the truth and that the law needs clarification so hospitals can abide better.

"They are lying to you. We are not trying to repeal the law, we are just challenging this one aspect of the law. We need to know what 'at all times' means," said Jan Emerson, a vice president with the California Healthcare Association.

Emerson said hospitals have every intention of meeting the nurse-to-patient-ratio laws which went into effect in January. A shortage of nurses in California, however, makes the "at all times" portion of the law undoable.

"Based on our surveys, nine out of 10 hospitals are out of compliance with the law," Emerson said. "That puts hospitals in all kinds of legal jeopardy."

The problem, Emerson says, is that under the current wording of the law a hospital is out of compliance whenever a nurse takes a break. Because the law says a staffing ratio of, say, one nurse to four emergency room patients must occur "at all times," hospitals must bring on an additional nurse even when one nurse takes a five-minute break.

"There aren't enough nurses in the state of California to make that aspect of the law work," Emerson said.

According to statistics from the California Board of Registered nurses, 30,288 nurses moved to California over the past three years. However, California lost 27,230 nurses to other states in that same period of time and the rate of nurses graduating from college is not keeping up with population growth.

Given those numbers, Emerson said hospitals want verbiage put into the law that requires a facility to meet staffing ratios at the beginning of shifts, but NOT "at all times."

Nursing advocates say that won't work.

"It's an argument that stands logic on its head, akin to saying factories may spew poisons into the air or water at night as long as they don't pollute in daylight hours," said Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Association.

Fischer, the Saint Louise nurse, says Gilroy's hospital is meeting all required nurse-to-patient staffing ratios presently.

However, Fischer acknowledged it was difficult to meet the ratios in the emergency room, where patient population can fluctuate by the minute.

"We're still working that out," Fischer said.

Within Saint Louise's ER and intensive care unit, Fischer said nurses are being kept on the clock to fill in for nurses on break. The single nurse floats back and forth between the two units so nurses can take regular breaks.

pickledpepperRN

4,491 Posts

http://www.calnurse.org/cna/press/51304.html

Contact: Charles Idelson, 510-273-2246, 415-559-8991 (cell) or Liz Jacobs, RN, 510-273-2232

Hundreds of RNs to March from the Capitol to the Courthouse

Rally in Sacramento May 14 to Defend Safe Staffing Law

Hundreds of registered nurses from more than 150 facilities across California from Eureka to San Diego will march and rally in Sacramento Friday, May 14 to protest efforts by the hospital industry to reverse the new patient protections established in California's landmark law requiring minimum safe RN hospital staffing ratios.

RNs will convene at the State Capitol and then march to Sacramento Superior Court for a critical court hearing in which a judge may rule on a hospital industry lawsuit to throw out the requirement that the ratio law applies "at all times" while a patient is in the hospital.

The lawsuit, filed by the California Healthcare Association, the lobbying arm of the hospital industry, is based on the premise that "patients should only be entitled to safe care at the beginning of an RN's shift, making enforcement of the law practically unworkable, an open invitation for hospitals to completely disregard the hard won patient protections," said CNA President Deborah Burger, RN.

"It's an argument that stands logic on its head, akin to saying factories may spew poisons into the air or water at night as long as they don't pollute in daylight," said Burger. She noted that the suit seeks to overturn decades of California law that require that hospitals be in "continuous compliance" with patient safety statutes.

RNs will also be protesting other hospital industry attacks on the law, which have included legislation and a major public relations campaign. That campaign, notes Burger, "poses grave dangers to public safety. Numerous studies document that safe RN staffing reduces preventable patient deaths, accidents, infection rates, and permanent injuries."

CNA surveys of RNs have shown that the law has already improved safety conditions at most hospitals. State data documents it is also helping to dramatically expand the number of RNs in California. Before the law's passage in 1999, the state was hemorrhaging RNs. But in the past three years alone, the number of actively licensed RNs in California has grown by 30,000.

pittdidi

19 Posts

Hello Batmik. I saw one of your posts and you said that new grads @ your work start @ $35. I wondered what hospital u're @is that standard salary for that area? T.Y.

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