Congressional Report on Nursing Shortage

Published Jul 11, 2001

2,709 Posts

Healthcare facility associations in opposition to legislation calling for safe staffing and prohibitions against mandatory overtime have been decrying a nursing shortage as the reason why such drastic measures as mandatory overtime are a necessary "tool".(See end-note)........

In reality, the nurses HAVE been there all along, and what is truly a "necessity" is an acute examination of, and accountability for, patient care conditions!........

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), at the request of the 107th Congress, recently released a report echoing what Ohio Nurses Association (as well as the ANA & UAN members) has been stating all along: that a maldistribution of labor, rather than an actual shortage, is pinpointed as the likely culprit behind the nation's nurse staffing crisis........

For many months now, after having extensively studied the BEDSIDE nursing crisis, ONA has concluded and claimed that numerically there is NO shortage of nurses in Ohio, rather, there is a mass defection of nurses from bedside nursing into other areas of healthcare, or leaving nursing altogether. The true culprit - unacceptable work environment conditions!.....

The report, which was released to Congress May 18, noted that available labor market indicators do not indicate "conclusively" that there is "an across-the-board shortage of RNs at the present time." The document further blames "poor personnel decisions" for any spot shortages of nurses that have occurred, rather than a simple lack of available nurse recruits. However, again echoing the sentiments of ONA, UAN & ANA, the report also warns that facilities could face a shortage of nurses by 2010 if "ameliorative actions" are not undertaken.......

ONA and ANA have long supported many of the remedies the report suggests, including increasing wages, improving working conditions and lowering education costs. ......

ONA is working with health care leaders in the Ohio House and Senate on House Bill 78, the Safe Nursing Patient Care bill, to address the use of mandatory overtime, along with other workforce and staffing issues. .......

Ohio Nurses Association

END-NOTE: A representative and staff member of the Ohio Hospital Association recently stated during a television interview on Nurses Day, "We don't believe that we can legislate ourselves out of the nursing shortage. There's no way that we can pass a law and overnight create enough nurses. We need to have a very long-term approach and we're working on that. We think this is the wrong time to do something that would take away

a tool that our

hospitals need to meet the patient care needs by saying, okay, we've just taken mandatory overtime off the table."

!!!!!

Another administrator once again misrepresenting the facts & trying to make the public think there are no nurses, instead of admitting that there ARE nurses - they just won't work in hospitals! They dont have to CREATE nurses overnight! The nurses are out there. They just have to make the place a decent one to work in & make it worth it for those nurses who are already "created" to want to work there! So, now is not the time to stop forcing mandatory OT??? When IT

is a major cause of the hospital being unable to hold on to the nurses it has or bring new nurses into the field, if NOW is not the time to get rid of mandatory OT, when is the time???

Youngstown Ohio Nurses remain on strike at day #70 for safe staffing because NOW IS THE TIME!!!!!!!

Support the Youngstown Ohio Striking Nurses (ONA/UAN).

Send a message of support & Dont cross the strike line!!!

see: http://www.OHnurses.org