Safe Nursing Staffing Levels - Needed Now
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Nursing Levels Dangerously Low - Patients at Risk - Big Risk
Here is a link to a tragic article by the Kaiser Family Foundation. It is about a woman who developed pneumonia while in the hospital. She was intubated and put into the ICU.
The hospital was a private equity hospital owned by Blackrock. Nursing staffing levels were horribly low. This is a strategic move by hospitals to save money.
Her husband noted how overworked the staff in the ICU was.
I probably don’t have to tell you how the story ends - the patient dies. Sepsis.
Sepsis is when an infection triggers an extreme reaction in the body that can cause rapid organ failure. It’s one of the leading causes of death in U.S. hospitals. Some experts say up to 80% of sepsis deaths are preventable, while others say the percentage is far lower.
Lives can be saved when sepsis is caught and treated fast, which requires careful attention to small changes in vital signs. One study found that for every additional patient a nurse had to care for, the mortality rate from sepsis increased by 12%.
Last year, Oregon became the second state after California to pass hospital-wide nurse ratios that limit the number of patients in a nurse’s care. Michigan, Maine, and Pennsylvania are now weighing similar legislation.
Efforts to pass mandatory ratio laws failed in Washington and Minnesota last year after facing opposition from the hospital industry. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association accused the Mayo Clinic of using “blackmail tactics”: Mayo had told lawmakers it would pull billions of dollars in investment from the state if mandatory ratio legislation passed. Soon afterward, lawmakers removed nurse ratios from the legislation.
There are multiple nursing problems in the US. Many have left the profession because of overwork and workplace violence and abuse. There is a pipeline shortage of nurses and a shortage of 4 year college programs for nurses and a shortage of nursing professors. There is also a workplace that mistreats nurses by making them responsible for far too many patients. The result is that patient outcomes suffer and not infrequently there is a tragic preventable death.
Here is a link to see what the ratios are state by state. Flip through - it can be so much better.
Summary
I know I harp on Universal Healthcare, like HR 3421 a lot, but it has those minimum nursing standards in place. We could do that. We could ask Congress to pass the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (H.R. 2530 and S. 1113), which would establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for every hospital. The bills would also provide whistleblower protections to nurses who speak up about issues affecting patient safety, including staffing levels. Here is the National Nurses United Factsheet.
Action 1 Federal
Let’s tell Congress (House and Senate) we want them to pass the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (H.R. 2530 and S. 1113), which would establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for every hospital. Their contact info is in the Resources section.
Or use RESISTBOT on your cell phone and text SIGN PLVKZK to 50409 to send this message.
“I am your constituent and I am appalled that we allow hospitals to overwork nurses to the point of risking the lives of patients. Understaffing the nursing function leads to unnecessary complications and preventable death. I want you to pass pass the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (H.R. 2530 and S. 1113), which would establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for every hospital.
PS you could implement HR 3421, National Single Payer Healthcare and it has safe nursing staffing levels in it.”
Action 2 State Level - (Not California or Oregon)
Tell your state elected representatives you want them to legislate safe nursing staffing levels to save lives. Use RESISTBOT to send this message by texting SIGN POZTVU to 50409 to send this message. You can call/email them - their contact info is in the resources section.
“I am your constituent and I am appalled that we allow hospitals to overwork nurses to the point of risking the lives of patients. Understaffing the nursing function leads to unnecessary complications and preventable death. I want you to pass pass safe nursing staffing levels in our state. An example is in HR 2530 at https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530
Please do this lives are at stake and you can help save them. Thank you.”
Resources
Healthcare Advocacy (Us)
Website
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Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: democracy.io
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water RESISTBOT write up
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Nursing staff shortages go back to at least the early 1980’s. It’s a disgrace when the people who provide the majority of patient care are treated like a commodity instead of being fully appreciated and well paid with humane and safe working conditions.
If we also had a priority to encourage the immigration of qualified medical professionals, that would ease some of these shortages as you have noted in another of your posts.
BTW, I like to write my own letters to have maximum impact with requests to electeds. I did so today and had quite an adventure using RESISTBOT. Its responses to my attempts to customize my letter were delayed and were one step behind what I was trying to do, so I went to each federal elected’s site and posted my own request.
Here’s what I tried to do. to create your own letter, you can now enter MANUAL to write your own. If your letter is longer than the 150 character messaging limit, you can send multiple messages and then separately send a message DONE to RESISTBOT. I hope my letter got delivered. RESISTBOT tells you to not include a salutation or signature because it handles that. RESISTBOT also volunteers to write a letter via AI if anyone wants to try that in this brave new world. RESISTBOT also offers a SWITCH command to direct you to other apps it uses to send long letters. That command did not work when I tried it.
Here was the letter I sent:
I'm a constituent who worked in healthcare as a psychologist, a post-doc resident and a medical transcriptionist/receptionist. Recently I have been a patient in hospital and in emergency departments dealing with cardiac arrhythmia issues.
Through friends who are nurses, I've been aware since the 1980's that nurse staffing levels have been sufficiently low that nurses feel afraid of making medical mistakes because they have too many patients and are asked to take too much overtime. With an increasing shortage of healthcare professionals, our healthcare system is fraying and at times falls apart, causing unnecessary deaths and complications for patients, very long waits for access to care that can also be deadly, and burnout among staff. Nurses are but shouldn't be second class citizens in the healthcare environment. And it is getting worse as private equity hollows out healthcare practices, hospitals and other facilities to funnel the money to "investors." Enough.
I'm writing to urge you to the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, aka HR 3421 and S. 1113. I also want to urge you to do whatever you can to increase the training of healthcare professionals and to streamline the ability of qualified healthcare people to immigrate to this country and help save us from our own short-sightedness. Eventually, I am a supporter of Medicare for All because our healthcare system costs us way too much for poorer outcomes compared to other countries that have implemented universal healthcare. Yes, their implementations are imperfect, but they're a great place to start.
Done!✅ Thanks for the support of our overworked and under-appreciated nurses, by far the largest % of the health care professions. Remember: The life you save could be your own. 👍🏼