Letter: A reasonable compromise on nurse staffing
To the editor:
On July 17, the Massachusetts Senate passed an important bill — SB 2816 — that will closely track how hospitals staff their inpatient care units and allow the state to step in and strictly regulate underperforming facilities. The Senate action prevented a decadelong effort by a small union representing only one in five nurses in our state from establishing ineffective and arbitrary government-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios.
Staffing is best left in the hands of RNs and other caregivers to set individual, hospital-specific plans. Instead of ratios, we should track and publicly report how hospitals meet their own staffing plans and other standards related to patient care. We should also obtain the data to see how nursing plans affect patient care and use that information to make improvements.
As an advocate of hospitals being accountable to the patients they serve, I think the Senate bill is a rational compromise. It balances a nursing union's desire to have state government dictate RN staffing and the hospital community's desire to respect the clinical judgment of professionals to meet the needs of individual patients.
In our region, state Sens. Frederick Berry, Bruce Tarr and Richard Tisei joined local hospitals in supporting the bill, for which we are very grateful. It is now time to put the long-fought battle over government-mandated nurse staffing ratios behind us and to give the stringent Senate bill time to work. Let's support SB 2816 — a rational solution.
ROBERT G. NORTON, President and CEO
North Shore Medical Center
Salem
