[Antiracism] [Workers Rights] Republican article on Patient Safety Hearing

[WMass Jobs With Justice]

-----Original Message-----
From: Diane Scherrer [mailto:dscherrer at mnarn.org] 
 
Thank you to all Western Massachusetts Activists who fight for patient
safety in Massachusetts hospitals! A special thank you to the nurses and
coalition members who journeyed to Boston yesterday and lobbied the
legislators to support H 2059, The Patient Safety Act.

 



 Nursing ratios eyed in Boston

Thursday, October 25, 2007

By DAN RING

HYPERLINK "mailto:dring at repub.com"dring at repub.com

 

BOSTON - Wildfires forced her San Diego neighborhood to evacuate, but Karin
J. Berntsen, a registered nurse in California, was in Boston yesterday to
help launch a new effort for mandatory nurse staffing levels in
Massachusetts hospitals. 

Berntsen and other California nurses from both sides of the issue testified
at a hearing at the Statehouse that would set minimum staffing numbers for
nurses in Massachusetts based on specialties. 

California was the first state to mandate staffing limits for nurses. 

"Though it's terrible in San Diego, we know every day patients die in this
state," said Berntsen, who testified before the Committee on Public Health
during a hearing attended by about 600 people, including about 100 from
Western Massachusetts. 

Berntsen, who is a director at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, said she
didn't know the condition of her 3,500-square-foot home on a mountain in San
Diego. 

After she left San Diego on Monday, her husband, Alan, an engineer, was
given 24 hours to evacuate. He and other neighbors were barred from
returning, she said. 

Fires in California have burned about 400,000 acres and forced 500,000
people to evacuate since Sunday. 

Berntsen told legislators the California law is saving lives. Since the law
took effect in March 2005, nurses and patients are more satisfied and
patient care is more efficient, she said. 

The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the state's largest nursing union, has
long pushed for approval of the bill to regulate nurse-to-patient ratios. 

The Massachusetts Hospital Association in Burlington opposes the bill,
saying it would take away the versatility managers need to provide good
patient care. 

"There is a nursing shortage," said Deborah S. Morsi, of Wilbraham, a
registered nurse and a vice president at Baystate Medical Center in
Springfield. "We need flexibility to meet the demands of patients." 

Another California registered nurse, Jill C. Furillo, a director for the
California Nurses Association, said she came to Boston even though fires are
threatening her four-bedroom home in a canyon in Tujunga near Los Angeles.
Fires were just about 10 miles away from her home yesterday. 

Furillo didn't know the fires would be so severe when she left the West
Coast last week and stopped in Chicago before Boston. 

She said mandatory staffing levels attracted 60,000 registered nurses back
to their jobs in California. She said the law is helping the state cope with
the fires, saying it would be "completely chaotic" at certain hospitals
without the law. 

Michael D. Jackson, a registered nurse at the University of California in
San Diego, which is crowded with burn victims, said he came to Boston
because he believes that Massachusetts needs a law similar to the one in
California. He said his colleagues at the San Diego hospital urged him to
keep his commitment to testify in Boston. 

Meanwhile,B.J. Bartleson, a chief nurse at Shriner's Hospital for Children
in Sacramento, and Frank Maas, director of emergency services at Little
Company of Mary Providence Hospital in Torrance, Calif., traveled to Boston
to testify against the bill. 

The California law sets a limit of a maximum of five patients for each nurse
in medical and surgical units, which have the most patients. 

"They are not working for us," said Bartleson said of the staffing limits in
California. 

Maas said the strict ratios force some patients to wait longer for care.
Hospitals don't have the freedom to manage nurses to help sicker patients,
he said. 

The bill for Massachusetts doesn't mandate specific ratios. The bill calls
for legislators to establish a commission to set those numbers. 

Registered nurses from Western Massachusetts who came in support of the bill
included Christine M. Folsom, of Holyoke; Diane P. Michael, who works at
Providence Hospital in Holyoke; Patricia E. Healey, of Northampton; Irene D.
Patch, of Belchertown; and Gail S. Bean, of Westfield. 

Last year, the state House of Representatives approved a bill to establish
mandatory staffing levels, but it died in the Senate. 

Lynn B. Nicholas, of Lexington, president of the Massachusetts Hospital
Association, said there is room for a compromise on the issue. 

"The most important thing is to get something done on this issue this year
in the best interests of our patients," she said. 




©2007 The Republican

© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.


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