For every nurse complaining about short staffing you need to do this!

Nurses General Nursing

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We have a member who is asking for our help. She is requesting that we sign a petition that will help put safe staffing ratio's into place in Nevada. Currently Nevada has surpassed California as the state with the worst nursing shortage, and we need to help our fellow nurses. I urge any of you who have experienced the routine short staffing so many of us complain about to sign this petition. When New Jersey signed into law the abolishment of Mandatory Overtime in that state, much of it had to do with letters that were written from nurses all over the country urging New Jersey to be the first to take a stand. Do this for your fellow nurses.

Copy/ paste from the activism forum.

Please come and sign a petition to lower the Nurse-to-Patient ratio in Nevada. It's a safety issue. Go to:

http://users.lvcm.com/nursenevada

Thank-you,

Every signature helps!

Dianne Moore, RN

I'd do that in a flash. But, it's talking about Nevada. If you're in another state, do they want your petition, too?

Yes, when New Jersey became the first state to pass a bill eliminating mandatory overtime for that state, nurses from across the country wrote in support of it, urging New Jersey to be the trend setter per se. When I wrote to the Governor through email, I received a letter back through email, noting the amount of out of state nurses who were urging New Jersey to do this, something that was commented on in a positive fashion and which then gave more steam to groups in other states who were attempting to get the same thing.

The other thing is this. Very frequently for new laws to be enacted at the Federal level, the impetus has to start in the states. Once it gets on the screen by several states taking action then the Federal government tend to take more of a look at it. Typical grassroots action.

Nurses ***** and moan all the time about how we don't stick together, well this is an opportunity in which to do so. Nevada may not be the state in which the various 23,000 nurses on this board practice in, but there is bound to be many who do. Let them know that you support the aims of doing something that protects their patients and their licenses. Next time around it may be in your state that they can help in.

I signed it.. even tho I am a student nurse, I hope they accept my signature. it asked for name, address, title and e-mail address.

marie:)

I simply wrote that this is a national issue, and I was in support of it. I hope that'll do.

bumpity bump==this thread deserves a second look, IMHO.. :)

Nevada, like most other states, is recruiting not just from the available RN pool in Nevada, but from all over the country & Canada. They need to hear what nurses & would-be nurses everywhere have to say about the issue.

Specializes in LTC/Peds/ICU/PACU/CDI.

i'll sign anything for the betterment of fellow nurses...whether they're from my state or not...they all could use my support!!!

luv - moe.

Hello all,

I am the one who started the petition in Nevada. Even if you're not from this state, I'd appreciate your signatures. Who says we can't try to change it at a National level? If anyone is interested in how to start a petition in your own state, you can contact me at: [email protected]

I sent an email to the members of the Nevada Nursing Association telling them of my intentions to start a petition and put it on a website. They contacted me and are giving me their support. It only takes one person to get the ball rolling. Fortunately I've learned how to build web sites and was able to do it with minimal cost. There are other ways to get it done. The nursing agency's are all supportive and are handing out pieces of paper (business card size) with the address of the website to sign the petition. I also says on the paper "pass it on." Nurses are giving the paper to their co-workers. This is just the beginning. We need to stand up for ourselves and the safety of the public. People are dying because of unsafe nursing conditions and the public is unaware of it. As nurses, it's our responsibility to bring it to their awareness. I expect the media will be jumping all over this soon, as the word gets out. Dr's are leaving the state because of the high cost of and a lot of it is being covered by the media.

I can hardly believe how supportive everyone is being. I didn't think I'd get that much support. In fact, the first person I spoke to about the idea (a city councel person in Minnesota) tried to discourage me from doing it because of the shortage. I believe this issue is contributing to the shortage. Hospitals want to show profits as every business does. Cutting staff is one way of achieving it. But when they are using profits to build beautiful new hospitals and not paying attention to causes of shortages it hurts everyone.

Please help me make a change.

Thank you to the person who started this thread!

Dianne Moore, RN

Nursing Nevada

Bumping the thread.

Nevada Nurse, when I have the time I will be contacting you. Gotta run to my daughter's choir concert.

Helen

I signed. Hope Indiana gets on the bandwagon soon.

Specializes in CV-ICU.

I don't know if nurse patient ratios are the answer, but they are better than 1 nurse for 30 patients as quoted in the article in 2000! I really feel acuity is a better system myself, but I will sign the petition because we can't afford losing any more nurses.

I also am starting to question the average ages of nurses these days! In the article back in 8/13/2000, it said the average age of nurses was 47 (and that is the figure that I have seen repeatedly in other sources for that time period). However, another article in this series (11/2/2001) said that the average age of nurses is 45! Not only are we able to care for impossible numbers of patients; but we are managing to get younger while doing so! Now I KNOW that the numbers of young nurses is increasing; but at a rate to drop our average age 2 years in 1 year? I doubt it! I still know too many "seasoned" nurses who are still working.

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