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| Nurse plan is unhealthy |
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Author: Editorial staff Publication: Boston Herald |
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May 29, 2006 - In Massachusetts, we’re all about access to health care, aren’t we? Surely that’s why we just hired a top health care executive (for the bargain price of $225,000) to implement the new health care reform law, and why even the conservatives among us agree that all Bay State residents must carry health insurance. And yet there was the House last week, falling over itself to approve a new nurse staffing mandate for hospitals that will surely limit access to health care in some parts of the state. How? By driving up costs for smaller hospitals and health centers. By a 129-29 vote, the House approved a bill backed by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which was the subject of lengthy negotiations. In the end it stayed true to its original goal - government regulation of the number of nurses who must staff every unit of every hospital at every hour of the day and night. The union claims such a mandate will ensure patient safety. Never mind that every hospital CEO in the state, nurse managers, the secretary of health and human services, major business groups (and yes, a few editorial writers) decried the notion of government bureaucrats, and not front-line medical professionals, issuing blanket rules for staffing a hospital ward. Consider this: The New York Times reported last week on an effort to solve our nation’s chronic nursing shortage by allowing more foreign nurses to work here. The fear is that when nurses are hired away from their homelands to work in the U.S., the poor countries will suffer. There’s a parallel here. In Massachusetts, when nurses from smaller hospitals and community health centers are hired away to fill shortages at the big ones to satisfy the new law, the patients will suffer. The only hope now is that state senators will listen to reason and to their colleague, Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge), who has fought the good fight against this so-called “compromise.” The Senate must do the right thing and reject this heavy-handed plan. |