This bill places mandatory meal and rest breaks for nurses and will extend to other healthcare professionals by 2021. Discover what this bill is all about.
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Nurses across the state of Washington celebrated last week when House Bill 1155 passed, creating new break and overtime laws for nurses and other healthcare professionals across the state. You probably first heard about the bill when video clips of Senator Maureen Walsh hit the internet that showed her opposing the legislation by making a comment that some nurses “probably play cards for a considerable amount of the day.” While her comment received tons of publicity and backlash from many nurses and nursing organizations, it wasn't enough to stop the bill from being passed.
Understanding House Bill 1155
The bill passed on April 24, 2019, and should go into effect on January 1, 2020. It currently sits with the governor, who will sign it for final approval. This legislation will implement new restrictions on hospital staffing. It removes a mandatory eight-hour cap on nurse shifts and also offers provisions that nurse’s breaks can’t be interrupted to address patient care needs. This means that nurses will receive uninterrupted meal and rest breaks, with the only exception being patient care emergencies. SHB 1155 also provides changes to the use of mandatory on-call for regularly schedule shifts and excludes pre-schedule on-call nurses from being used to cover staffing needs for reasons like census or high acuity. Finally, the bill protects nurses and other healthcare workers from not receiving rest breaks between consecutive shifts that will put them into overtime hours. While the initial changes will affect nursing staff, other healthcare workers will be included in these rules beginning in July 2021. The list of workers that will join in on the provisions of SHB 11155 includes radiology technicians, cardiovascular invasive specialists, certified nursing assistants, surgical technologists, and respiratory care practitioners.
While everyone knows Senator Walsh made a statement that was insensitive to the long hours and hard work nurses do each day, other lawmakers and hospital associations in the state agree that this bill could be detrimental to critical access hospitals. The fear is that these small, rural hospitals, who have less than 25 beds, might have difficulty complying with the newly passed regulations because of staffing constraints. However, critical access hospitals have been given additional time to comply and won’t join the law until July 1, 2021.
Washington Nurse Speaks Out in Support
The Spokesman-Review interviewed ICU nurse, Sara Rice just after the passing of the bill. Sara reported that in her 10 years as a nurse she has never worked a full week where she was able to take her allotted breaks. She went on to explain that it wasn’t a knock at her employer, but rather a cultural issue that’s prevalent to both nursing and hospitals. Rice feels that the bill is a “big win for nurses” even though lawmakers and the hospital industry remain in opposition. Rice went on to say in the interview that, “We just want patients to get quality, safe care. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need laws for that.”
Could More States Follow?
While Senator Walsh shuffles through the more than 1,700 decks of cards she received in the past week, you might be wondering how the passing of SHB 1155 could affect other states. You may have even considered how your current laws about breaks and lunches work and if your employer could meet the standards of rules like this.
If this would happen in your state, how would you feel? Do you agree that SHB 1125 a win for Washington nurses? Or could it even be a win for nurses across the country?
Let us know how you feel about the passing of this law below.
