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14 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 A P R I L | M AY 2 0 1 4 I t was standing room only in the Gardner Auditorium at the Massachusetts Statehouse March 24 as registered nurses, healthcare advocates, former patients, and academic researchers came to testify on two critically important issues affecting the healthcare of every resident in Massachusetts. The Committee on Healthcare Financing held the hearing on two ballot initiatives Massachusetts Nurses Association RNs sponsored that garnered more than 200,000 signatures from state voters this past fall in order to qualify for this November's ballot. On May 21, RNs also held a huge lobbying event in support of the bills. The Patient Safety Act (H. 3843) will dramatically improve patient safety in Massachusetts' hospitals by setting safe, realistic and prudent standards for the maximum number of patients that can be safely cared for by hospital nurses at any one time, while providing hospitals with the flexibility to adjust staffing based on patients' needs. Current- ly there is no law requiring adequate or safe nursing coverage, a situa- tion that places thousands of patients in jeopardy every day. The Hospital Profit Transparency & Fairness Act (H. 3844) will guarantee taxpayers' right to know exactly how their healthcare dol- lars are spent by hospital administrators. The transparency act requires that hospitals receiving tax subsidies disclose in a timely and fully transparent manner how large their profit margins are, how much money they hold in offshore accounts, and how much compensation they pay their CEOs. To ensure access to needed serv- ices by all patients, the act also provides for enhanced funding options for hospitals serving poorer populations. Those testifying in support of the two initiatives made the unas- sailable case at the hearing that the hospital industry is putting prof- its before patients, paying exorbitant CEO salaries, and hoarding millions in profits—all while cutting needed services and providing dangerous patient care conditions that have ranked Massachusetts the 42nd worst in the nation for preventable hospital readmissions. Colleen Wolfe, an RN at UMass Memorial Medical Center, shared a story at the hearing about how lack of staffing is not only unsafe for patients, but prevents RNs from providing the caring and human connection that many answered the calling of nursing to give. A family was unable to be at the hospital to be with their dying baby, so a neonatal nurse asked the manager to find just one more nurse to help so that she could sit and hold the baby to prevent it from dying alone. "The manager refused, saying, 'We don't know how long it will take him to die,'" said Wolfe. A highlight of the hearing came when a panel of researchers testified to the mountain of research that clearly demonstrates that unsafe patient limits for nurses are causing a host of serious complications, increasing patients' length of stay, and killing thousands of patients each year. Conversely, they made it clear that the same research shows that On a Mission Massachusetts RNs make their overwhelming case for ratios and hospital accountability By David Schildmeier