Have you or a family member ever had the unfortunate experience of suffering from a pressure ulcer? In addition to being extremely unpleasant and painful, pressure ulcers can become so deep that they result in damage to your muscles, bones, tendons and joints.
And pressure ulcers – also commonly known as bedsores – are almost always preventable when proper staffing levels are adhered to.
Yet last week’s release of Minnesota’s Eighth Annual Adverse Events Report noted that incidents involving pressure ulcers spiked more than 19 percent statewide in 2011. What state hospital executives didn’t mention in spinning away that alarming statistic was that numerous national studies have shown a direct correlation between inadequate nurse staffing levels and an increase in conditions including pressure ulcers, pneumonia, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, shock/cardiac arrest, urinary tract infections and more.
The numbers don’t lie – safe staffing levels save lives and improve patient outcomes. While many will remember that the Twin Cities nurses’ strike during the summer of 2010 shined a white-hot spotlight on the issue, unsafe staffing has been a problem in Minnesota for decades.
As patients, you deserve better. You and your loved ones should never suffer without need from pressure ulcers, urinary tract infections or other conditions that can be prevented with adequate RN staffing levels.
Money is not the issue. Keep in mind that during the great recession of 2009, Twin Cities hospitals had their largest profit margins (6.5 percent) in a decade! It’s not that hospital executives can’t pay to adequately staff their hospitals. They just don’t want to.
My fellow nurses will continue to remain vocal about the needless suffering we in our patients see as a result. And data such as the recently released Adverse Events Report will continue to lend credibility and credence to our concerns.
Sincerely,
Linda Hamilton, RN
President, Minnesota Nurses Association