safe staffing legislation

Nurses Activism

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Many states including NJ have started and have been for many years proposing safe staffing legislation that would mandate nursing/pt ratios for RNs and Nursing aides especially in LTC facilities. Why are nurses afraid speak up and push for this???

In NJ currently the NJ A1470 and NJ S 989 establish minimum RN staffing standards for hospitals, ambulatory surgery and certain DHS facilities

A 382 is for minimum nurse aide ratios in nursing homes.

Lee

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For every ONE nurse that stands up, there are 5 nurses on staff who need the money and have to be there to earn it. All that happens if that one nurse stands up is they assign the patients she refused to take care of to the other nurses. Then, they enjoy a 1:7 ratio for the day, instead of 1:6.

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Specializes in ICU.
2 hours ago, Persephone Paige said:

For every ONE nurse that stands up, there are 5 nurses on staff who need the money and have to be there to earn it. All that happens if that one nurse stands up is they assign the patients she refused to take care of to the other nurses. Then, they enjoy a 1:7 ratio for the day, instead of 1:6.

Persephone, have you really seen it go down that way? That is terrifying! I am in California with mandates nurse-patient ratios. It sounds crazy to me when nurses say they have so many patients since I’ve only been trained with mandated ratios.

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5 hours ago, 0.9%NormalSarah said:

Persephone, have you really seen it go down that way? That is terrifying! I am in California with mandates nurse-patient ratios. It sounds crazy to me when nurses say they have so many patients since I’ve only been trained with mandated ratios.

I've never seen anyone walk out due to non safe ratios, I've seen call-ins that have left the nurses caring for 1:7. Nobody walks out, they just take the extra patient because they need to work. I've never seen it go above 1:7 though. That's still a lot, especially since many are on Tele.

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I wonder about this too. Ive read that nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, but we seem to have limited power. Is it because it is a women dominated profession? Is it a lack of unity? Do we think we have to suffer/"pay dues" to be "real" nurses? Is it because we just wanna keep our heads down and work? I just dont know.

I'm leaving a job with unsafe ratios. I will be leaving my coworkers behind, and i am sad for them. It will be even more unsafe until they find another body to plug the hole.

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On ‎3‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 11:58 AM, 0.9%NormalSarah said:

Persephone, have you really seen it go down that way? That is terrifying! I am in California with mandates nurse-patient ratios. It sounds crazy to me when nurses say they have so many patients since I’ve only been trained with mandated ratios.

It happens all the time in Indiana. One of the sister hospitals in our network has a crazy PCU/ICU combo unit. You either have 2 ICU and one PCU or 4 PCU or 2-3PCU and 1ICU and your patients can be on different hallways. In the ER I worked in prior to moving to PACU I would routinely have 4 acute stroke, sepsis, chest pain, etc patients and a drunk in the gurney in front of me. You are lucky to be in Cali.

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Specializes in ICU.

Wow @Grrrse that is wild! I am very lucky for sure.

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I work on a Tele/ICU stepdown where we also cover pulmonary/renal/dka/neuro-tele. Per our own policy we are supposed to have a 1:3 patient load but flex to 1:4, in reality a light night is 1:4. More often lately we have been at 1:5 but flexing to 6 which is dangerous. The problem is that even though we are considered the main hospital for the tricounty area we are still really just a small community hospital and since we don't advertise to nursing schools that we exist we have very few new staff coming in to fill holes so we depend on travel nurses when they are available.

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