Letter to editor Sacramento Bee

[pickledpepperRN]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/letters/story/10949087p-11866349c.html

...Safe nursing

Re "As health care expands, its politics grows more convoluted," Sept. 14: In an unfortunately lopsided defense of the hospital industry's mountain of woes, i.e. the expectation that their buildings won't fall down on patients and workers in an earthquake and that they should provide care for indigent patients, columnist Dan Walters also takes aim at the law that is requiring safe staffing for hospital patients.

His assertion that hospital safety exemplifies politics over good public policy ignores two years of legislative hearings and four more years of regulatory processing to establish the new safe staffing standards that are the direct product of hospitals caring more about their wealth than about public health.

Walters' claims that meeting the law will cost hospitals $1 billion is a flight of absurd fantasy. The state said hospitals would need an additional 4,900 RNs for the law in 2005 and an additional 2,600 RNs in 2006. That hardly adds up to $1 billion; perhaps Walters has RN pay confused with the lavish compensation pocketed by some hospital CEOs."

- Donna Gerber, Sacramento

Director, Government Relations, California Nurses Association...