How is a health issue made into law?

Your state must have mandates in place,that ensure safe staffing ratios. This doesnt even begin to happen until nurses unite and have someone who is willing to write up a proposal and take it to the senate floor.

Grassroot efforts can begin with nurses, letter writing campaigns,calling your congressmen and senators,protests, joining a union that will have the clout to help bring about safe staffing laws.

There are a few threads about safe staffing legislation in the works

http://allnurses.com/forums/f100/ari...os-271740.html

http://allnurses.com/forums/f195/ill...es-262625.html

Making Law in Pennsylvania
Shows process how bill gets started and ultimely passed or rejected....federal government same process Hill Basics: The Legislative Process


Check out the Civics 101 primer from citizenJoe or Government 101 from Project Vote Smart to learn how a bill becomes a law. It's so much more interesting than you learned in grade school!


From ANA:

Nurse Staffing
ANA supports H.R. 4138 and S. 73, the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act, which would hold hospitals accountable for the development of valid, reliable unit-by-unit nurse staffing plans. These plans would be developed in coordination with direct care registered nurses (RNs) and based on each unit’s unique characteristics and needs. The bill also provides for public reporting of staffing information, and includes whistle-blower protections for RNs and others who may file a complaint regarding staffing.

Take Action on Safe Staffing


Have you ever wanted to get more involved in the public policy process? The RN Activist Tool Kit provides the tools you need to take action on the issues you care about, both with your elected officials and in your community. Whether you are a new advocate who has never contacted your elected officials before, or an outspoken activist who has been active on nursing issues for years, this Tool Kit will help you make your voice heard.

Wanted: Nurses Strategic Action Team (N-STAT)
ANA's Nurses Strategic Action Team (N-STAT) makes it easy for you to unite with your colleagues across the nation and let lawmakers know how you feel by keeping you up to speed on key bills as they move through Congress and letting you know when your emails, phone calls, and letter will make the most impact.

Capitol Update is the ANA Government Affairs' free, online legislative and political newsletter on issues that impact nurses. Published 10 times per year, it contains the legislative updates on Congressional and state actions, federal regulatory news, and political notes. View the Current Capitol Update


Checking on status of a bill:
THOMAS is the official website for the status of U.S. federal legislation. It is run by the Library of Congress of the U.S. government.

If you are a member of ANA or one of it's chapters then you are allowed to bring a resolution to a meeting and, if approved by your peers, have the resolution presented to the delegates convention. If it is approved there it goes to the lawyers and lobbyists and to Congress. There are processes for the state and federal levels. The important thing is, it is free to all members and your resolution may benefit many nurses.

Chedk out ANA REsolutions made over the years that were used as the basis for creating laws at the federal and state level:

AANA - ANA Resolution 2002
1980 the Ohio State Nurses Association introduced the resolution "Peer Assistance Program for Nurses Impaired by Illness or Chemical Dependency"

Over 40 states now have peer assistance programs that state assosications spearheaded introduction and passage through state governments..... this resolution continues support so all states have programs.
American Nurses Association - Impaired Nurse Resource Center


Handle With Care®: The American Nurses Association’s Campaign to Address Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders

Table 3. Timeline of OSHA Ergonomics Regulation

July 31, 1991: ANA, along with other labor organizations, petitions federal OSHA for an emergency temporary standard, "Ergonomic Hazards to Protect Workers from Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (Cumulative Trauma Disorders)."
November 23, 1999: In response to ANA’s ongoing appeals, OSHA issues proposed ergonomics standard (29 CFR Part 1910 Ergonomics Program; Proposed Rule).
November 14, 2000: OSHA promulgates and finalizes ergonomics standard (29 CFR Part 1910 Ergonomics Program; Final Rule).
March 20, 2001 :President George W. Bush signs legislation killing the OSHA ergonomics standard.
June 21, 2003: ANA Board of Directors adopts a position statement on "The Elimination of Manual Patient Handling to Prevent Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders."
September 17, 2003: ANA President Barbara Blakeney officially launches the "Handle With Care® " campaign

Needlestick and Sharps Injury Prevention

Legislative Impact
A new era for prevention began in November 2000 when President Bill Clinton signed the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act shifting the focus in exposure control from behavior to devices. The law became effective in April 2001 and amended the OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard to require the use of engineering controls known as safer needle devices to prevent exposure to bloodborne pathogens and to require documentation of all needlestick injuries (OSHA, 2001a). Similar efforts are underway in Europe where on International Nurses Day, May 12, 2004, a call for action to European institutions and policy makers was publicized by the Standing Committee of Nurses of the European Union (PCN) and others. A major goal is the use of ‘Sharps Protection’ Technology (Eucomed, 2004). This announcement and previous reports of the first documented deaths in 2003 from occupationally-acquired HIV in the National Health Services in the United Kingdom (UK), add momentum to a drive for safer needle devices led by the Royal College of Nurses and the UK health care worker union, UNISON RCN, 2003).

The movement for achieving passage of the U.S. 2000 Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act was a step-by-step, state-by-state approach, gathering allies and momentum for success. Nurses were key to the success. Nurses across the country were involved in conversations with colleagues and elected officials about the need to protect health care workers. This not only raised awareness about the hazard of HIV and hepatitis in the workplace, but also raised general awareness about the hazards faced by health care workers and the impact on the nursing shortage. By the time the federal law was enacted, 17 states had passed legislation requiring safety devices.

Since becoming an activist in my union, (CNA/NNOC), I've discovered that the real world of law-making has little resemblence to what we learned in social studies class all those years ago.
The biggest thing most people don't know if that hardly ever does a legislator think of a law on their own. Almost always, an interest group of some sort - whether a company, a local government entity, or an organization like a union or professional association - writes the law first, then looks around for a legislator to sponsor it.
Sometimes they have to negotiate details to get the legislator to sponsor. sometimes the legislator does it because they are ideologically aligned with the goals of the legislation. Sometimes, it's because they owe the organization.
The other eye-opener for me is that our legislative staff spend most of their time, not on passing good law, but on stopping bad law. Most of that is attempt by hospitals and various interest groups to dilute RN practice by allowing lesser trained and lower paid people to do work that is reserved for the RN now - IV meds for example. Or allowing school health aides to act as nurses.
We have to kill 20 or so of those every year.

Any of the misdeeds of the medical community are already covered by tort law. Americans in particular have the right of redress.

Laws kill patients and citizens. How many examples shall I cite?

Huh?

to "TheSquire": your confusion is very understandable, if you are a member of what we might call the reality based community. Based on this and other posts, it appears that Kjetski is a classic libertarian. Libertarians, believe that nearly all laws and regulations are bad. His/her specific reference here is to the libertarian belief that the only consumer protection, or medical safety protection anyone needs is the ability to sue if you are harmed.
Aside from the fact that the big corporations nearly always have much better access to legal help than the rest of us - making tort law a very unequal playing field - the typical non-libertarian finds it more satisfactory to have a regulation that prevents an unsafe product from killing us than to sue after we are dead.

A really doctrinaire libertarian would believe that the government should not be involved in licensing medical professionals - you should be able to get care from anyone you want and it should be up to you as a consumer to judge whether they are competent or not.