As predicted by many, California's nurse-to-patient ratio law (also known as AB394) may not go into effect after all. Bowing to the serve nursing shortage in the State and at the suggestion of both the hospital industry and the union (SEIU) possible changes include:
-- inclusion of LVN's and RT's to replace RN's in filling the ratios
-- higher ratios (more patients per nurse) for the ER and
psychiatric units
-- different ratios for night shifts than for days
-- delays in implementations
The State's other nursing union (CNA) is fight these changes.
Also, the CNA and SEIU instead of joining forces to unionize the State's medical personnel, are at each other's throats to see which will get the bigger share of the nurses' $$$$$$$$. Stay tuned for more news on this on-going soap opera.
You said you were anti-union on the first page. You cited being from California as your reason. How could you be disagreeing with me? I'm not against people from California and I really don't have an argument for it.
I'm sorry that you feel "accused" of anything. That's not why I entered the discussion with you. I did beat around the bush so as not to cast aspersions on you.
By not answering it, you have said volumes about how you feel about nursing, at least as far as it would have made me feel to have someone thinking that I might be misrepresenting myself.
Your obviously not "nursey"......and I am.
"Pro-me" fits you very well...........you should use it for your signature.
Anyhoo,
no harm done if we really didn't discuss anything.......right? I don't think we got one important point across to eachother and I spilled my guts while you were just offended of being "accused", or so it would seem.
We'll just agree that you live in an egocentric vacum and you are self-employed.
I'm SO disappointed to hear of the watering down of the California nurse patient ratio mandates....I was really hoping this would be a beacon for the nation's hospitals...and the start of positive changes for nurses.
When nurses can organize as one voice and lobby and influence like the hospital associations and the nurse executives, THEN we will have a voice in our workplace and a chance to better our work environment.
Our individual voices will not help us as a group (yes, we can help ourselves personally perhaps....but this does not effect work conditions, MOT, etc...things that are at the core of the 'shortage')
IMHO, we must organize (and lobby with the big boys) to effect substantial industry change. Gomer, I don't understand your argument against organizing; I see little progress for nurses if we cannot.
If they are I'm sure thier family doesn't know either..................................................................Yes, Gomer may be a "closet nurse".
Claiming the scrubs in the laundry are just a new fashion thing. Saying it's just for a drug habit when the syringes fall out on the floor.
Deflecting questions about the vomit on your shoes by saying "I had some bad chinese food".
Oh, the shame of it all.
I wonder if this may be our Judas. I mean, maybe this attitude is more prevelant than we could imagine.
You can cut and paste the sample letter above into the body of the email or write your own message to the governor explaining how the SEIU and the Hospital Industry proposals will harm patients at your facility.
The above seems to infer that the safe staffing law was established by unions out to just serve themselves but this was not about anybodys membership. It was about providing safe quality pt care & the RN union that brought it into existence would like to see it remain so.
However, the SEIU saw an opportunitiy to increase its membership by filling those positions with the larger categories of workers it represents & the hospitals will do anything to be able to avoid hiring RNs & hire less expensive staff instead - so they teamed up together to lobby for a counter-proposal that would serve themselves. While the RN union who initated the drive for safe staffing ratios kept pt safety & pt care as its focus.
Safe staffing was an issue first brought to the legislature by the RN union. RNs were being overloaded with an unmanageable number of pts & that presents unsafe conditions for both RN & pt. The staffing ratio law was sponsored by the RN union. Their INTENT of the law was that it pertained to RN staffing ratios.
Once it looked like the law had a chance of passing, the SEIU in partnership with Kaiser Hospital system which had been vehemently opposing the bill, suddenly changed its tune & proposed a different version of ratios using the word "nurse" - with the plan of filling those positions with less costly LPNs - members of the SEIU. Since the LPN cannot function as an RN & the RN would still be responsible for any pts assigned to the LPN, the SEIU/Kaiser proposal does nothing to solve the problem - it STILL overloads the RN with too many pts to safely care for.
According to their proposal, a 'nurse' on med surg can be assigned 6 pts. If theres 12 pts that means the 1 RN gets 6 & the 1 LPN gets 6, but the RN is still responsible for the total care of all 12 pts & everything an LPN is not allowed to do - for all 12 pts. And since those numbers is what we're already handling now & are saying its too much, & is what initally caused RNs to ask the legislature to put a stop to in the first place, SEIUs proposal is no improvement & is of no help to RNs or pts.
Its solely to put the less expensive SEIU members into jobs & cost the hospitals less money. In the meantime, SEIUs RN members, a smaller group than the rest of its membership, get sold down the river with their own union insisting on higher numbers of pts for them to care for. The only ones thinking about the pt, the RN, quality care & safe staffing - not money - is the RN union. The only ones fighting back for RNs & for pt safety is the RN union. How any RN can be against that is beyond me.
I'm anti-union because I was born (many, many moons ago) and raised in the West. We are an independent lot, very rarely part of a group, strong believe in being self-sufficient, individual.
Being born and raised in The West has nothing to do with it. I was born and raised in Arizona, and now live in Texas.
It is in the Nursing professions favor to at least bring the discussion of patient safety/nurse:patient ratios to the view of the public. The recently published studies by Linda Aikin at U.of P. and published in the popular literature re patient outcomes related to RN staffing have also increased public awareness and debate. CA's bill may get watered down for now, but 28 states have initiated similar legislation. The state of Nevada has one that I particularly like the wording of.
It will take time. State by state, and contract by contract. We will have safe ratios someday.
Kaiser-Permanente, from what I understand, is going to implement these ratios before the previously mandated start date. Is that still current info? As hospitals do, they will attract nurses and it will become an expectation on the part of nurses and consumers to have safe staffing levels in hospitals.
Re the nursing shortage We have never had the research done to know what nursing is, how much is needed, what costs, how much it weighs, what benefits it has on patient outcomes. This is just beginning to be done now. Think about shortage- how would you be able to tell if we had too many nurses or too much nursing? Medicare and Medicaid have been around since the 1960's, have spent billions of dollars but have no meaningful data re nursing costs. Where is the accountability on the part of M&M, GAO,or whoever?
The Assembly Health Committee late Tuesday approved a significant bill to strengthen hospital industry compliance with California's first in the nation RN-to-patient staffing ratio law. AB 253, sponsored by the California Nurses Association, next heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB 253 passed the committee on a 14-8 vote.
AB 253, introduced by Assembly member Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), establishes tough penalties, including fines of up to $5,000 a day, on hospitals that continue to maintain unsafe RN staffing after final implementation of the ratio law. The law also extends the ability of state health officials to conduct unannounced inspections.
"Enactment of this law would send a clear message to hospitals and the public that the state will not tolerate unsafe staffing and willful violation of the ratio law that puts patients at risk," said CNA President Kay McVay, RN.
The ratio law, AB 394, which was also sponsored by CNA, requires minimum RN staffing for all hospital units, and is a critical measure to restore the patient safety net in California hospitals. All hospitals will be required to meet the staffing levels by January 2004. A hospital industry bill to delay implementation was defeated earlier this month after extensive opposition and testimony by CNA RNs.
Last fall the Department of Health Services held public hearings on the specific ratios. Under the DHS proposal no RN would have more than 5 patients (after a one-year transition period) on general Medical or Surgical floors, with fewer patients per RN in most other units. The DHS has been reviewing testimony, including over 20,000 letters and cards submitted by CNA, and is expected to issue the final ratio regulations in the near future.
Presently, however, the DHS has only limited mechanisms to crack down on hospitals that violate the law, for example, fines of only $50 per patient in areas where violations occur. "The original bill did not address the enforcement mechanisms for this important patient safety law," Steinberg said upon introducing the bill. "It is essential that we provide the DHS with effective tools to ensure compliance with the regulations."
In addition to CNA, supporters of AB 253 Tuesday included the Congress of California Seniors, Gray Panthers, and the California Association of Nurse Practitioners. Opposition is led by the hospital industry.
Peeps Mcarthur
1,018 Posts
Gomer,
You said you were anti-union on the first page. You cited being from California as your reason. How could you be disagreeing with me? I'm not against people from California and I really don't have an argument for it.
I'm sorry that you feel "accused" of anything. That's not why I entered the discussion with you. I did beat around the bush so as not to cast aspersions on you.
By not answering it, you have said volumes about how you feel about nursing, at least as far as it would have made me feel to have someone thinking that I might be misrepresenting myself.
Your obviously not "nursey"......and I am.
"Pro-me" fits you very well...........you should use it for your signature.
Anyhoo,
no harm done if we really didn't discuss anything.......right? I don't think we got one important point across to eachother and I spilled my guts while you were just offended of being "accused", or so it would seem.
We'll just agree that you live in an egocentric vacum and you are self-employed.
I'm envious