Hebrew SeniorLife President & CEO Louis Woolf recently posted a blog on the nurse staffing issue entitled “Massachusetts Nursing Ballot Question is Bad for Our Health.”
Woolf’s blog delivers a series of concise arguments about why government-mandated, one-size-fits-all nurse staffing ratios would be bad for Massachusetts healthcare.
“The American Nurses Association of Massachusetts and the Organization of Nurse Leaders oppose this ballot question because it strips decision-making power from nurses themselves,” Woolf wrote. “Our hospitals vary in size, specialize in different services, and serve different patient populations. Having the same staffing plan at every hospital, for every patient, at all times makes no sense and many nurses agree.”
Woolf said one argument against ratios “hits especially close to home for me.” Noting the past winter’s back-to back nor’easters, Woolf wrote, “Hebrew Rehabilitation Center teams rallied together to make sure our patients were well taken care of during the storms. When blizzard conditions make traveling difficult, we don’t always have full staffing. Yet as a team, our nurses determined where we needed critical resources and utilized other team members to support the nurses. And the outcome was excellent. With this law we, and other hospitals, could face penalties if enough nurses are unable to report to work under severe weather conditions.”
To read the post, which includes details on the ballot question’s costs, its effect on ED wait times, and more,
click here.