MASSACHUSETTS NURSE NEWSLETTER :: May/June 2008

Executive Director’s Column

Julie Pinkham

By Julie pinkham
MNA Executive Director

“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
—author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Although staffing clearly remains a critical issue which requires an enforceable regulatory solution, in the past year we have seen a number of employers become angry at the tenacity of staff nurses as they exercise their rights to pursue this much needed health policy.

A number of employers have brought that anger with them to the bargaining table and in the workplace—in essence retaliating against nurses for pursuing legislation that would protect patients.

In opposing the safe staffing bill, they claim they can’t find the nurses to meet requirements for better staffing, yet we are hearing from new graduates across the state, as well as other applicants for nursing positions that hospitals are not hiring or even returning phone calls.

Others allege the inability to find nurses, yet they are engaged in layoffs. Still others claim they can’t possibly recruit or retain nurses to meet regulatory staffing standards yet they pursue or engage in mandatory cancellation of shifts, saying they don’t have the need for staff.

It’s Alice in Wonderland time at our hospitals. These are the employers who clamor that competition is harming their bottom line and thus can’t afford safe staffing … the very same employers who championed deregulation to allow this competition. Now these employers—hospitals that never miss a public relations opportunity to champion their involvement in health reform claim health reform is harming their bottom line. And let’s not forget that a large portion of health care reform had to do with hospital reimbursement rates, which sent more money to hospitals. Strange, how these hospitals are getting more money from health care reform, yet claim it is hurting them.

Meanwhile the hospital profits for 2007 are in—that number is $1.3 billion up from the staggering figure of $1.1 billion for 2006. So the rich are getting richer and new buildings are rising with Baystate launching a $150 million expansion and MGH, a hospital with profits larger than the entire budget of the World Health Organization, is about to embark on the single largest expansion in Massachusetts history.

These are the employers who remain angry that nurses are pursuing a health policy that benefits their patients, a policy supported by more than 80 percent of the public and 90 percent of Massachusetts nurses, as well as a coalition of over 130 leading advocacy organizations.

The industry balks at safe staffing even as the research continues to mount showing that safe staffing improves patient care, saves the hospitals millions of dollars and dramatically improves the retention of nurses.

So hats off to the House of Representatives which voted 119-35 on May 22 to pass compromise legislation that would require the Department of Public Health to create enforceable standards and limits for nurse-to-patient assignments in Massachusetts hospitals.

Now we await the Senate and the governor to weigh in on the Patient Safety Act.

If you want some satisfaction against the employers who are retaliating against you at the bargaining table and in the workplace, call your senator and drop a line to the governor, asking for passage of this landmark bill that will provide the safe limits our patients deserve.