Ohio Nurses to Testify Wednesday Against Hospital Industry’s “Fake Healthcare Reform” Bill

Nurses to Propose Ohio Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2008 with Genuine Patient Safety Improvements and Safe Nurse Staffing

Ohio registered nurses from the National Nurses Organizing Committee Ohio will testify against HB 346 before the Ohio House of Representative Health committee Wednesday at 4:00 pm. The nurses will charge that with HB 346, the hospital industry is not protecting patients and is deepening the nursing shortage with a faux-reform bill written to block the kind of genuine patient safety provisions the state desperately needs.  In response to the flawed measure, the RNs will introduce the Ohio Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2008, in order to bring improved care to patients around the state.

HB 346 fails to improve patient safety due to a series of loopholes that render the bill nearly meaningless.  HB 346 does not define what staffing levels for nurses are safe, and will allow Ohio hospitals to continue overloading nurses with as many patients as they choose.  HB 346 does not end the practice of unsafe floating, which forces nurses to work in units outside their specialty or training, and it does not protect nurses from retaliation if they point out an unsafe care situation for a patient.  Moreover, HB 346 continues to allow Ohio hospitals little if any legal obligation to report instances of endangerment of patients by particular sentinel events, hospital acquired infections, patient falls, surgical or medication errors, etc.

Michelle Mahon RN, CLNC, comments, “HB 346 is harmful in that it makes it look like the hospital industry is doing something about the healthcare crisis when in fact, they are not.  HB 346 will maintain the status quo, just as the Ohio Hospital Association plans.”

NNOC Ohio is preparing to introduce the Ohio Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2007, which will give nurses the legal protections and support to provide patients with the care they need.  These protections are especially necessary as the patient population has grown much sicker in recent years. Ohio RNs say the Hospital Patient Protection Act will allow Ohio to continue to recruit and retain the best registered nurses in the nation.

The Patient Protection Act would:

• Set minimum RN-to-patient staffing Ratios
• Assure RNs the legal guarantee to serve as patient advocates
• Establish real whistle-blower protections for RNs who expose unsafe conditions

Rhonda Risner Hanos, an RN in Dayton, Ohio added “It is imperative that nurses unite for such an important issue as nurse-to-patient ratios. Patient advocacy is what we do best and the best thing we can do as nurses is to ensure that each patient we care for will receive the absolute best and safest care possible.” 

In addition to Ohio, NNOC/CNA members are promoting similar safe patient ratio bills in Illinois, Maine, Arizona, and Texas, and are working with the Massachusetts Nurses Association on a proposed ratio law in their state. 

“To this date, RN staffing has been determined by hospitals and they have continually been irresponsible.  Every day, patients are left in unsafe situations.  It is time for life-saving staffing legislation, not a perpetuation of the status-quo,” said Michelle Mahon RN, CLNC.

About NNOC/CNA:
The National Nurses Organizing Committee, founded by the California Nurses Association, is a national movement for registered nurses with some 80,000 members from California to Maine.