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We’re no longer living in the age of newsboys hawking breaking news on street corners, but this extra Healing Newsletter brings you a set of opinions on fixing health care in America.
I talk about safe nurse to patient ratios, because I remain hopeful that if I emphasize that often enough the powers-that-be will eventually act. You can read my comments below. The entire column is here: CNN expert panel on Health Care.
Theresa Brown: As nurses fare, so fare patients
Theresa Brown
When too few nurses work on a hospital floor, patients die who would likely otherwise have survived. That is not hyperbole, but a fact well established by research.
Despite this, many hospitals have been understaffing their wards for years. Then, Covid-19 came, confronting overworked nurses with extremely ill patients who were dangerously contagious. Many patients died, and many nurses quit. Of those who remain on the job, many are considering leaving.
The crisis in nurse staffing arose largely because many health care entities prioritize profits over healing. Nurses comprise the biggest labor pool of any hospital, and are therefore viewed in corporate terms as a cost center rather than a profit generator. Eliminating nursing positions gives hospitals an easy way to cut their labor costs. The problem is that that no nurse can do the job of two nurses well, so care managed within such a rigid capitalist framework will inevitably be less safe.
To save nursing, and patient care, we need federally mandated staffing ratios of nurses to patients in the hospital. Ratios were implemented in California in 2004 without putting big hospital systems out of business. And the Center for Medicare and Medicaid recently imposed nurse staffing requirements in skilled nursing facilities, which are specialized nursing homes. Economic support from the government for financially struggling hospitals could help them staff appropriately.
As nurses fare, so fare patients, because nurses are the canary in the coal mine for patient health. Patients deserve to have safe curative care prioritized over excessive health care profits.
Theresa Brown, nurse and New York Times bestselling writer, is the author of “Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient,” and “The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives.”
Thank you. Appreciate your work. We in Illinois are attempting again in collaboration with other organizations to re-introduce our IL Safe Patient Limits bill in 2023. Published NursesTakeDC 2019 survey June 2022- https://illinoisepi.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/pmcr-ilepi-registered-nurses-in-crisis-final.pdf. Launched IL nurse staffing survey now for 2023 prep- All Illinois nurses please complete the IL Nurse Staffing Survey! Here is survey link: https://bit.ly/3rR8rkH Here is supporting research, including studies conducted in IL: https://bit.ly/3fROozE
Awesome! I’m a newly licensed nurse and about to be published author myself and you have been an inspiration to me. I love that you are advocating for nurses (and patients!)