President’s message

The time has come — our patients deserve a vote
Pass H.1282 now!

By Karen Higgins, RN
MNA President

The time for safe staffing has come. We have waited long enough, and our patients have waited long enough. Now we are pushing the call button and it’s the legislature that needs to answer that call and save the quality and safety of patient care in Massachusetts.

To help deliver that message, more than 1,000 nurses and patients will be flooding the State House on May 11 to make sure our legislators hear our plea. If you get this issue of the Massachusetts Nurse before May 11—and you can get the time off or have the time off— you need to be part of the crowd at the Statehouse. You need to one of the multitude who are joining together to make sure, once and for all, the legislature acts and acts now to pass H. 1282, our safe RN staffing bill.

May 6 through 12 is Nurses Week and our message to our administrators, to the legislature, to the media, to the public and to anyone who will listen is, "If you want to pay tribute to nurses, than grant us the right to practice conditions that will allow us to deliver the care we were educated to deliver. Stop the delay; we want a vote on H.1282 by the end of Nurses Week! We’ve waited for six years for this issue to be dealt with. We’ve answered every question. We’ve proven
our case. It’s time for a vote."

The MNA and the Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients is pulling out all the stops to make safe staffing a reality. In late April, with the support of Jennifer Callahan and 49 other state representatives, an amendment mirroring our bill was filed to be included in the state budget. This is another way of making safe staffing become law and raising
awareness. We have nurses calling legislators, e-mailing them and sending in postcards and hand-written letters—and we have nurses roaming the halls of the Statehouse making personal visits.

We have until July 31 to make this happen. We have a coalition of 65 organizations behind us; we have more than 102 legislators
signed on as co-sponsors; we have 80 percent of the voting public behind this measure. Now is the time to act. Now is the time for all of us, no matter how tired we feel, to take the time to do our parts to change our profession and to protect our patients. History will judge us for the actions we take in the next few months. Let’s act now to make this a history we will be proud to claim as our legacy to the future of nursing!