FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LAWMAKERS AGREE PATIENTS NEED STANDARDS OF CARE
Standards of Care Act passes House Committee
(St Paul) – February 21, 2013- The Standards of Care Act passed the Minnesota Labor, Workplace and Regulated Industries Committee, moving the bill that sets staffing levels for hospitals to ensure safe patient care. The bill was introduced to the Committee by House Author, Joe Atkins (DFL-Inver Grove Heights)
Committee members heard from bedside nurses from Minneapolis, Sleepy Eye, and Duluth about the struggle to provide good care for patients when they’re understaffed.
“It’s an awful, awful feeling,” said Joe Howard, an RN in the Burn Intensive Care Unit at Miller Dwan Medical Center. “You have a patient who is 100 percent dependent on your care and you can’t provide that care because you don’t have enough hands. It’s the worst feeling in the world. It’s enough to bring a guy like me to tears.”
When asked why nurses don’t negotiate staffing levels in contracts, Howard told the committee his unit has had a Letter of Understanding in their contract since 2010, but only recently have nurses and administration talked seriously about the details of implementing the agreement after more than two years. An Essentia Health Services executive admitted they began revisiting the process just three weeks ago.
Other nurses testified that staffing levels have pushed nurses out of their careers, which only worsens the nursing shortage in Minnesota.
“We’ve lost 33 nurses in 3 years at our hospital. Two retired early, and 31 have outright quit. We stand to lose six more if things don’t change,” said Naomi Freyholtz, an RN at Sleepy Eye Medical Center.
President Linda Hamilton gave insights to the committee about the frequent near-misses that happen beyond the events that are reported. “My job is to take the time to reinsert tubes and or re-tape them and assess the skin under them,” said Linda Hamilton, RN at Children’s Hospital Newborn Intensive Care Unit and MNA President, “but when faced with not giving medications, preventing patients from pulling tubes out, or documenting what I have seen and done-it’s these small preventative measures that can go by the wayside.”
House members also compared the similarity of the bill with other employees who have standards for staffing to ensure safety, such as firefighters and daycare providers.
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