NEWBURYPORT — Today, a public hearing will be held at the Statehouse to place new limits on the number of patients a hospital nurse can care for at one time.
Yesterday, nurses and members of The Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients gathered at Atkinson Common to urge lawmakers to pass the bill, stressing the dangers of understaffing at area hospitals. But President of Anna Jaques Hospital Delia O'Connor said the hospital is against the bill and passing it would lead to layoffs.
Nearly 30 people, including some AJH nurses, turned out yesterday to send a message to state Reps. Mike Costello, D-Newburyport, and Harriett Stanley, D-West Newbury, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Healthcare Finance.
"Anna Jaques Hospital is pretty well staffed as far as the nurse-to-patient ratio," Christine Milligan of The Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients said. "Throughout the state, there is no mandate, and it's up to each hospital to determine staffing levels."
However, O'Connor said the bill would be too expensive to implement without making cuts.
"This legislation has been around for many years, and we, like every hospital, oppose it," O'Connor said. "It's not that we are against good nurse staffing, it's just that this is a rigid and unworkable piece of legislation in this period of health care. It would add $250 million to $500 million dollars to our budget."
Under the House bill titled The Patient Safety Act, the Department of Public Health would set limits on the number of patients a hospital nurse can care for at one time. The bill also bans the practice of mandatory overtime and includes initiatives to increase nursing faculty and nurse recruitment.
Under the bill, the ratio of patients to nurses would be set regardless of their level of need and regardless of unit or shift.
"There is no place for these staffing rules in the complicated world of health care," O'Connor said.
Instead, O'Connor said the hospital supports a similar Senate bill that is targeted toward similar issues of improving safety and appropriate staffing levels at area hospitals.
"Senate Bill 876 is not one-type-fits-all," O'Connor said, noting the bill implements nursing committees, which include frontline nurses in the hospitals to generate recommendations and staffing plans.
"If the Patient Safety Act is to be enacted, which would be an unwise thing at this perilous time in health care, we would have layoffs to meet the budget," O'Connor said. "Suddenly, we would need a lot more nurses on night shifts where we now go to lower staffing. We would have to lay off a lot of aides and transporters who help support nursing."
O'Connor said nurses would then have to be in charge of bathing and pushing patients to different floors of the hospital, something the support staff is now able to do for them.
Costello is in support of the House bill, which he believes will improve hospital safety. Stanley did not immediately return calls seeking comment on her stance. In 2006, Stanley voted for the Nurse Staffing Bill, which aimed to create an advisory board of nurses to decide nurse-to-patient ratios.
"During the last session, they came close to getting the bill through," said Costello's chief of staff, Adam Martignetti. "Hopefully, they will get it done this session.
"There has been a lot of work on both sides to compromise and protect patients, but it also takes into account flexibility hospitals need on a day to day basis to operate."
O'Connor said it is never clear what is going to come through the door at a hospital, and AJH has plans in place should it get busy quickly.
"We have respectable staffing plans of 1:2 in the ICU (intensive care) and 1:4 in the telemetry floors. Post operation and for patients not in need of monitoring, it is 1:5 during the day and evening," O'Connor said. "We are in support of better care and safety, just not in this way that does not adjust for acuity and imposes a rigid work rule approach, which is why it is so expensive."
