[geekgolightly]

done. thanks.

[NJNursing]

I sent mine out today. Thanks for the post!

[BrokenRNheart]

I have a link to a national petition as well. It is to get legislators to look at it and hold hospitals accountable. It states that the nurses should out-weight administrators in unit ratios and instead of offering incentives to push more grads through, to offer incentives based on nurse retention in a hospital which includes the re-entry of licensed inactive nurses. There is also emphasis on exit interviews as far as the hospitals incentives.

I think incentives for retention, exit interviews and nurse re-entry is worth thinking about. Also, there is always going to be controversy as far as who and where you decide the rations. I think the only fair thing to do is have the NURSES do the calculating and not administration. Administration is blinded by budget and profit. Nurses know what gets the job done right.

PM me and I will send you the link to the petition. It is confidential - your name cannot be seen publicly so managers cannot see if their employees signed it. This is obviously going to take time but if we do nothing we will get nothing.

[Tweety]

bump....going to make a stickey of this thread for future reference.

[BrokenRNheart]

Originally Posted by Tweety

bump....going to make a stickey of this thread for future reference.

Thanks Tweety

[Hokie]

Thanks for the link. Completed the survey and sent the letter.

[RN Power Ohio]

Many of us also believe this bill if enacted would be dangerous for nurses. Staffing plan legislation has been enacted in several states and proposed in many others.

There is too little accountability. No guaranteed voice for nurses, no democratic process for electing nurses to committee.

I believe this bill is harmfully misleading as do many, many RN's across the country.

We need to stand up against false reform and DEMAND true reforms. It may take a little longer but will be worth it!

[marie-francoise]

Originally Posted by RN Power Ohio

Many of us also believe this bill if enacted would be dangerous for nurses. Staffing plan legislation has been enacted in several states and proposed in many others.

There is too little accountability. No guaranteed voice for nurses, no democratic process for electing nurses to committee.

I believe this bill is harmfully misleading as do many, many RN's across the country.

We need to stand up against false reform and DEMAND true reforms. It may take a little longer but will be worth it!

As I stated in a previous post:

This represents an important first step because:

1) It's the ANA

2) It's going to Congress

3) It acknowledges one of the greatest problems facing nurses today

4) If unit-determined ratios don't work, then we can point to this as a precedent and move on to more federally-mandated ratios across settings.

It's a "lesser of the evils" approach.

More importantly, at least it will increase awareness of the problem of nursing understaffing among Congress members.

The ANA is supposed to be the nation's leading nursing organization, so shouldn't we at least try to use such a pre-existing, well-known, well-resourced body to advocate for nurses?

P.S. If nurses don't agree with this approach, they can lobby Congress about federally mandated ratios (my preference).

[RN Power Ohio]

I suppose I see your point. I don't like putting time money and energy into half-measures.

There may be national legislation for ratio's soon- I hope. Maybe rather than use the pre-printed letter nurses could craft one that states there is REALLY a need for mandated ratio's and encourage them to support that when they are approached.

ANA actually only has 165,000 members though they claim to represent 2.9 million nurses. I do not think that nurses should continue to allow them to claim that they represent the interest of all nurses let alone direct care nurses.

The largest organization of direct care nurses is the CNA/NNOC.

Perhaps that will count for something when writing the letters asking congress to support mandated minimum ratios!

[NRSKarenRN]

For past 25 years I've contacted my legislators on various forms of healthcare legislation to help get laws passed or stopped at both state and federal level along with periodic trips to Harrisburg (state capital) and twice to Washington. My House Rep called me yesterday at the office to update me on Pa's MCAT legislation...so my emails, personal office visits working!

What I've learned over the years is initial legislation needs to appeal to the broadest constituency possible in order for Senators and Representatives to even consider passage. The hospital healthcare lobby sees this as a cost move. We see it as PATIENT ADVOCACY: ensuring adequate staffing to prevent patient death from being stretched too thin...after all the "eyes in the back of our head" aka sixth sense only goes so far around doorways.

Points marie-francoise made will get the legislation on the books. If/when proven ineffective, can then proceed to introduce ratios.