Legislators say they need to get the cost of doctor and hospital care down in order to make health insurance affordable for everyone. Yet a bill passed by the House last month and now pending in the Senate would significantly boost payroll costs for the state's community and teaching hospitals.
The misnamed "Patient Safety Bill" (H 4714) would allow bureaucrats in the state Department of Public Health to make decisions on nurse staffing that properly belong to hospital administrators. Massachusetts would become the second state, after California, to establish such standards. And while Golden State hospitals have seen a significant increase in staffing costs, there's been no evidence the law has made patients any safer.
"Caregivers on the front lines should have the authority to make the decisions about how to care for each of us. But, once again, a union that represents less than a quarter of all nurses in Massachusetts persists in lobbying for one-size-fits all, across-the-board care," according to a recent letter to this newspaper signed by Robert Norton and Stephen Laverty, chief executives, respectively, of North Shore Medical Center in Salem and Beverly Hospital.
Sadly, the House of Representatives succumbed to the pressure brought to bear by the Massachusetts Nurses Association and its allies, voting 119-35 on May 22 to pass the nurse staffing bill. (Those among the local delegation in favor included Reps. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead; Mary Grant, D-Beverly; Brad Hill, R-Ipswich; Barbara L'Italien, D-Andover; and Joyce Spiliotis, D-Peabody. Reps. Brad Jones, R-North Reading; John Keenan, D-Salem; and Ted Speliotis, D-Danvers, were opposed.).
The issue now moves to the Senate, where there seems to be growing support for a more reasonable compromise bill put forward by Sen. Richard Moore, who chairs the Health Care Financing Committee, that would address some of the concerns regarding patient safety and working requirements for nurses, without imposing minimum manning requirements on hospitals. It would also encourage state colleges and universities to step up their nursing education programs in order to increase the availability of trained personnel.
If legislators are serious about addressing health costs, they'll get behind Moore's bill and scrap the idea of imposing minimum manning requirements on the state's hospitals.
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