Please Tell Us If You Are Contacting Legislators/ANA, etc. Re: Nursing Concerns

Thank you, Barton, for all you have done to improve working conditions for nurses and exposing critical patient safety issues. The "bottom line" approach to health care has resulted in alarmingly dangerous practice situations and interference with the nurse-patient relationship. By your persistent "shining the light," we can all hope that genuine change can be effected. Our patients will be the ultimate winners!

Did anyone read that Clinton will be signing a bill that will fund rural and urban hospitals to bring overseas nurses here to "help" with the nsg shortage? If they have money to help, why not use it to help the nurses who are already here??? The bill was started by Rep Bobby Rush <Illinois-D> because an Illinois hospital claimed to have spent $2 million last year on contract nurses "at about $55/hr".
As an agency/contract RN I have seen many staff and administrators point their fingers at agency/contract as to why so much is spent on nsg. I've also seen experienced agency nurse cancelled so inexperienced staff nurses can be used in our place. The admin. have pull adult CCU RN's and newborn nursery LVNs to pedi and NICU in a heartbeat, even though said nurse has never worked the unit before. Pretty scary having to give report to som eof these nurses or getting report from them. One CCU nurse told me she pumped a teen girl full of MS and Demerol BEFORE bothering to check the pending pregnancy test results. The newborn nursery LVN couldn't even read our MAR and missed a NICU med. The pt took a turn for the worse while under her care and had to be reassigned to another nurse. Sure they save money, but it is the pt who suffers. While they were quoting how much was spent on the hourly rate for contract <which they didn't say was most likely the agency fee, the actual nurse will make maybe half of that for med surg floors>, they don't bother to say how much they have paid their administrators, etc...
Personally, I think all nurses should go contract/agency...better pay/work conditions/flexability.
OH, by the way, ANA spokeperson said ANA had no problem with the foriegn nurse bill, saying that it will not help the hospitals attract qualified nurses. And what re: the nurses already HERE that will be displaced by the foriegn nurse bill??? The bill also says that hospitals must pay the nurses "prevailing wages". I take that to mean they will have to take the lousy pay that the rest of us won't put up with??

As I posted under another thread, I'm a little late getting on the bandwagon, but have copied all of the postings on this thread and plan to contact my state and federal elected officials, the ANA, the MNA, and the MN State board of nursing. Is there anything else that I can do?

To all nurses,


We were happy to see that the media is finally realizing what we as nurses have known all along. That the amount of trained nursing staff on any given floor has a direct relationship with patient healing and safety. Less nursing staff may mean a higher risk of infection, medication errors, missed symptoms and/or an increase in the hospital stay for the patient. We at the CNG, have been fighting for a public recognition of this problem for some time now. We have been calling and writing our legislators, providing information to 20/20 and writing articles. While our voices on the net are only now being heard, it is not time to stop just because 20/20 did a story. It is time to nudge this spark into a roaring fire.

The 20/20 story was well done in our opinion. It did however, not go far enough. Towards the end, no solutions were given with the exception that the answer might be to certify or license the Techs, Nursing Assistance, ect... As you well know, this is not enough. An RN spends a minimum of two years training and an LPN a minimum of one. Some states have Certified Nursing Assistance and they do not know the first thing about infection control or anatomy/physiology. Why then are they doing dressing changes and placing Foleys?

We are asking all Nurses to let their voices be heard. Call 20/20. Post on their Internet BB. Send this to every nurse you have on your E-mail list. Post this message everywhere you can including any Internet sites you know of. Tell them we must keep the spark alive while adding fuel to the fire. The story was half told. It up to us to let the public know the truth.

Remember this. Hospitals are not afraid of the government. Money in the right place buys anything. Same with unions. Hospitals do not fear them either. What they will fear, is an informed public that is demanding to know, who is taking care of their loved ones. A well trained, experienced, educated and Licensed RN. Or a Tech with six weeks training. The fight is up to us. Just remember, the next patient you care for on your understaffed, undertrained floor, may be someone you love.

Please, let your voice be heard. The Internet BB are anonymous. Letters, phone calls to 20/20 and you legislators may be anonymous too. Just let your voices be heard.

ForMoe
Founding Member CNG

The Concerned Nurses Group www.hospitalhub.com/community/cng/index.html