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| Nurse-staffing ratio not government's job |
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Author: Editorial Publication: Springfield Republican |
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May 26, 2006 - How many nurses does it take to care for a hospital patient? At some other time, this might be the start of a joke. The joke will be on health care in Massachusetts if lawmakers pass a bill giving state government the authority to decide nurse staffing levels in hospitals. Staffing-level decisions should be made by professionals, people who have the training, experience and skills to make these important decisions. The House passed the bill on Wednesday, so it now heads to the Senate. The Senate should stop this bill in its tracks. The union representing registered nurses has been battling to get mandated-staffing ratios for a decade. The union wants the citizens of Massachusetts to believe that hospital patients are not safe today. They've wanted us to believe that for the past 10 years, yet patients have been receiving quality care. Let's be real. If the hospitals were providing lousy and unsafe care for patients, they would be losing business - and this newspaper would be publishing stories about hospital tragedies. The hospitals have not compromised on care, even during those years when many hospitals in Massachusetts were losing money. The quality of care in a hospital is not measured by the number of registered nurses. It depends on a team of care providers, a support staff that includes nursing assistants, pathologists, nurse anesthetists, x-ray technicians and many others. The bill approved by the House this week disregards this and singles out registered nurses. Should there also be a mandated staffing level for medical records technicians, and another one for physical therapists? Lawmakers in the Senate should see this for what it is: a labor dispute between hospitals and a nurses' union. As we noted earlier, the union is seeking to legislate what it could not negotiate. This is not the time or place for that. We urge members of the Senate to vote against this bill, and not make the same mistake as members of the House. So how many nurses does it take to care for a patient? The answer: We're not sure, but we are sure lawmakers don't know either |