National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_Sept 10/5/10 5:42 PM Page 10 WRAP-UP REPORT on sept. 27, Maine nurses rallied to protest cuts to patients care and nursing staff that jeopardize safe staffing. "Sometimes I come home at night and I can't believe that a tragedy hadn't occurred on my shift because we are so short staffed, and I wonder how I can go to work the next day to face it all over again," said Lori McPherson, a recovery room RN at The Aroostook Medical Center. Nurses are committed to consistent safe staffing. Hospitals need to schedule adequate numbers of nurses to be able to provide safe, effective, and therapeutic patient care. Contracts will be expiring soon at Eastern Maine Medical Center, The Aroostook Medical Center, and Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, and there has still been no agreement to guarantee patients safe staffing by the administrations of these facilities.  Instead of investing in their experienced and committed nurses, Maine hospitals are asking nurses to take cuts in benefits and freeze wages. Both Eastern Maine and Maine Coast have posted healthy revenues to the Certificate of Needs Unit at the Department of Health and Human Services in order to qualify for new buildings and renovations. Yet they are telling nurses and patients they have to go without.  Ohio ohio nnoc members have fought hard for eight months to make Ohio hospitals more accountable to the public about their staffing practices, medical errors, hospitalacquired infections, and adverse events. Such data is veiled in secrecy in this state.  While Ohio NNOC RNs continue working toward their ultimate goal of passing a mandatory RN-to-patient ratio law, for the short term they have sought to influence existing disclosure rules by participating in a nurse staffing workgroup of the Ohio Department of Health. NNOC's three goals were: mandatory reporting of current, actual RN-to-patient ratios on Ohio hospital floors, 10 N AT I O N A L N U R S E Texas the newly expanded nnoc-texas leadership group, now including union-organized HCA and Tenet Health facilities as well as NNOC metro committees, met for its second monthly meeting in El Paso on Aug. 31. Collective bargaining nurses reported on a wide variety of issues that they are handling in all the facilities. These issues range from unfair discipline and write-ups to call-in and call-off procedures. HCA nurses are also preparing their contract proposals and strengthening their union organizations in anticipation of bargaining. Nurses from the San Antonio, Houston, and Austin metro committees discussed with their colleagues the prior years' campaigns for ratios and rights, in preparation for the upcoming 2011 legislative campaign. All five RN negotiating committees met with HCA management in El Paso at one statewide bargaining table on Sept. 22. Future negotiating locations will alternate between west and east Texas. —Staff report W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G (Continued from page 9) from around the country fought to ensure that their hospitals adopted the CDC standards so that they would be protected, and hospitals would not become vectors for infection.   Now, the CDC asserts that lowering respiratory standards is acceptable because an effective H1N1 vaccine is widely available, and the overall risk of hospitalization and death caused by H1N1 is substantially lower than previously thought last year. However, last year's H1N1 vaccine was effective only 62 percent of the time, and, unlike the seasonal flu, H1N1 is disproportionately dangerous and deadly to working-age people like RNs. Further, the CDC continues to acknowledge that H1N1 is airborne transmissible, so suggesting that surgical masks provide proper protection to RNs in close contact with patients who have H1N1 is nonsensical.         Despite strong objections from numerous state and national groups concerned about the safety of RNs and other healthcare workers, the CDC finalized its recommendations and published them on Sept. 17.  Contact the CDC at ICUpubliccomments@cdc.gov and ask it to restore N-95-level respiratory protection standards so that RNs and their patients will be properly protected this upcoming flu season. —Kelly Green SEPTEMBER 2010 PETER PARKS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/NEWSCOM Maine mandatory reporting of "failure to rescue" rates, and mandatory reporting of adverse events taking place in Ohio hospitals. NNOC presented abundant research proving the relationship between excess patient deaths and high RN-to-patient Texas RN leaders ratios, but the gathered in El Paso hospital industry's to share experiences power within the and strategize over workgroup preventupcoming contract ed the reporting of negotiations. actual staffing numbers, instead requiring hospitals to report RN care hours per patient day. NNOC's proposal that hospitals must report "failure to rescue" rates was recommended by the entire workgroup, thus providing the public with important information related to the quality of hospital staffing. Overall, NNOC believes that reporting on nursing and safety issues by Ohio's hospitals has been improved through its participation in the workgroup, but much remains to be done in the state of Ohio. NNOC will continue to educate the public and elected officials on the need for accountability and transparency in the operation of hospitals, which is necessary to save the lives of patients who are dying unnecessarily from infections, errors, and understaffing.

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