Let`s Make Our Voices Heard!

mdfog10 · Sep 21, 2003

Hi,

Where are you ? Here in California we have ratios that will begin in jan 04. not perfect but a start. Australia has ratios also.

Nurses need to be involved in legislation to protect our patients. the hospitals will not do it willingly or independently of nurses.:roll :roll :roll :roll :roll :roll

angelbear · Sep 21, 2003

There needs to be staffing ratios in LTC as well and they need to be enforced. Someday I am going to be there and I dont want to have to wait forever and a day to go pee. Nurses and aids are pathetically overworked and underpaid. I long to return to geriatrics I am just not willing to lose my license in order to care for the people I adore. My 58(I think) mother is in the nursing home I used to work at and she just had another fall because she could not wait for the aid to come and take her. It is HORRIBLE these people have lived there intire lives for this. So sad. OOPs I think I may have kind of hijacked your thread sorry. BTW I am with you FOR staffing ratios where do I sign?

peglegpeg · Sep 21, 2003

Hello! I am in Kentucky - no MMS here. But if I can do it, I`ll go nationwide in a heartbeat. We nurses have more strength now than ever before - we need to get organized and get it going - today! :) I believe that getting the word out to the public, and circulating petitions, would do worlds of good for us. We have to make a change - its up to us! :cool: P

gwenith, BSN, RN · Sep 21, 2003

Australia here - ours are not mandated as such but are enforced through both the union and the accreditation council. We use a computer system called Trendcare.

This is a reasonably simple tick and flick system. It has it's disadvantages - heavens knows but it is the best we got and it does *PROVE* that we need the staff that we say we do.

I say go for it and push at all levels. After all you are not asking for the moon - just safe staffing. You need some form of guide though as a simple number ratio will have you still in problems as the acuity within our hospitals continue to rise.

SharkadelicRN · Sep 21, 2003

We have a group of nurses in our community that are trying to establish better working conditions and better staffing ratios. We are still in the beginning stages but I do see great things on the horizon. Come visit our website.

This is what we are doing

peglegpeg · Sep 22, 2003

Applause to you! If every state would organize such a group, we could sweep this nation with the much-needed change and reform. How exciting it is to live in such a time! P

Geeg · Sep 22, 2003

I wish we could have a national nurse sick day. You knowsort of like police and the blue flu.

peglegpeg · Sep 24, 2003

HOW MANY HANDS?

are caring for your loved ones in a nursing home? Not enough!

I am lobbying for KENTUCKY legislation to pass for nursing home minimum wage staffing reform. This is a serious problem - the nursing homes are desperately understaffed! One NURSE simply cannot provide adequate care to 50-60 patients. One CNA simply cannot give adequate care to 30-40 people. Nursing home residents are suffering daily from lack of staffing. Please - add your voice - AND YOUR VOTE - to mine! Let`s give our elderly the care they need and deserve!

Vote YES for minimum staffing standard reform in Kentucky!

The general public is unaware of how poorly the state of Kentucky nursing homes are staffed. They believe that the N/H`s have adequate staffing to meet the patients` needs. Below is an excerpt of a report of the guidelines of the NCCNHR-approved federal staffing standards:

Adequate numbers of well-trained, well-supervised staff are critical to quality in long term care. The Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-203) promised each nursing home resident that s/he had the right to expect care and services from the nursing home which would allow him/her to "attain or maintain his/her highest practicable level of physical, mental, and psychosocial functioning." Unfortunately, however, Congress did not go that extra step and require a specific minimum caregiver/resident ratio or a minimum standard setting out the number of hours per patient day that a resident should be receiving care.

In 1990, Congress did require the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study and report to Congress by January 1, 1992 on the appropriateness of establishing minimum supervisor to caregiver to resident ratios and provide recommendations on such ratios. Only now, in 1999, is that report being completed. The Department of Health and Human Services expects such a report and recommendation to be submitted to Congress in 2000.

Until the federal report was completed, the role of setting specific standards was left to the States to develop and implement. Most states have a specific minimum standard in state law, regulation, or policy. None of those state standards, however, meet the Consumer Minimum Staffing Standard - a standard developed by nursing professionals with long term care expertise and adopted by the membership of the National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (in 1995 and an updated version in 1998). The Consumer Minimum Staffing Standard requires, at the very least:

FOR EVERY NURSING FACILITY:

A full-time RN Director of Nursing

A full-time RN Assistant Director of Nursing (in facilities of 100 beds or more)

A full-time RN Director of In-service Education

An RN nursing supervisor on duty at all times (24 hours, 7 days per week)

Direct caregivers (RN, LPN, LVN, or CNA)

Day 1:5 residents

Evening 1:10 residents

Night 1:15 residents

PLUS

Licensed nurses (RN, LPN, or LVN)

Day 1:15 residents

Evening 1:20 residents

Night 1:30 residents

PLEASE! DO YOUR PART AND VOTE THIS INTO LAW!

EMAIL

[email protected]

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MINIMUM STAFFING REFORM:

NCCNHR

KATHY STEIN - KENTUCKY STATE LEGISLATURE

AARP

Precious Times · Sep 30, 2003

Our Profession Needs a good strong Union again, All Nurses, STNA's and Social Workers should bind together and Elect to have the Union brought back. Look at our History and see the respect and apreation the Nursing field got, and the profound devotion that they gave the patients, We need the UNION Back to protect our rights our opinions and to hold our health and sanity together. Let us show our profession the respect it so desperately deserves. We can all be a light for generations to come, Together we can move the Mountain! Apart we move only a stone. I Hope we all do are part, and remember the compassion in are hearts for respect and dignity of all Humane Life.

-jt · Sep 30, 2003

There are safe staffing ratio legislations pending in 16 states at the moment. Those legislations got there because of the work NURSES and their professional organizations in those states did to get it in. Nobodys going do it for us.

In NY, nurses of the New York State Nurses Assoc wrote the safe staffing legislation for RN-pt ratios that is currently going thru the legislative process: http://www.nysna.org/publications/report/2003/may/legislation.htm

NY State proposed legislation - Minimum RN-patient Ratios:

Critical Care 1:1

Emergency Dept./trauma patients 1:1

Emergency Dept./non-critical care 1:3 (Triage must be done by an RN, but that nurse and any supervising nurse would not be included in the ratio, even if they provide direct patient care)

Perioperative Care 1:1

(in the operating room [not including RNs serving as circulating nurses or first assistants])

Post-anesthesia 1:2

Maternal/Child Care 1:1 in second or third stages of labor

First stage of labor 1:2

Newborns/intermediate care nursery 1:3

Non-critical antepartum patients 1:4

Postpartum mother/baby couplets 1:3

Postpartum or well-baby care 1:6

Med/surg--telemetry patients 1:3

Med/surg--step-down units 1:3

General med/surg 1:4

Pediatrics 1:4

Behavioral health 1:4

Rehabilitation care 1:5

additional legislation addressing safe staffing ratios in LTC has been introduced in a separate bill.

(unlike the california nurse ratio law, there will be no confusion over who can fill these ratios. The NY legislation specifically states that these are RN ratios. LPNs can be in the mix, but then the RN's assignment must be adjusted to allow for the responsibility of the LPNs pts too. THe RNs ratio for pt responsibility will have to remain the same even when LPNs are added.)

The NY DOH this month established minimum medical and nursing staff-to-patient ratios in its proposed regulations for live adult liver donation and transplantation, but only for these pts and only after a tragic and well-publicized death. Liver transplant patients are not the only ones who deserve safe staffing. Since the NY DOH will not establish minimum RN-to-patient ratios for ALL New York's patients, then the state legislature must do so. Thats what theyre in the process of doing now. Regular nurses who took the time to educate their elected offifcials & light a fire under them made that happen. Its up to us.

peglegpeg · Oct 3, 2003

There are safe staffing ratio legislations pending in 16 states at the moment. Those legislations got there because of the work NURSES and their professional organizations in those states did to get it in. Nobodys going do it for us.

Exactly! This is what I am working so hard on, here in northern Kentcky. The apathy and disinterest of the LPN`s here astounds me - I`ve been trying to figure it out for the year I`ve been here.

I realize that the administrations in the n/h`s would keep quiet about any pending changes, due to the fact that they can understaff their homes perpetually, and the staff nurses aren`t realizing that they`re severely overworked - and underpaid, as well. And I realize that the nurses who live here and go to school here and work here are acepting this understaffing as par for the course.

What I don`t understand is why no one questions it! I have worked in several n/h`s this past year, and I have met one nurse - ONE - who expressed thoughts that staffing standards are inadequate! All other nurses just take it for granted that "this is the way it is".

I am working daily to get these nurses educated on this issue. In a years` time, I haven`t met ONE who was even aware that legislation is in the works!

And the general public - the voting public - ditto! P