FIGHTING FOR OUR FRONTLINE
FOR OUR NURSES
SAFE STAFFING
In 2018, Massachusetts overwhelmingly voted against a ballot measure requiring nurse-to-patient ratios beyond those already required in intensive-care units. Unfortunately, without these required ratios, patients health and safety is at risk. Higher nurse-to-patient ratios have been shown to result in a higher risk of infection, medication errors and in some cases, fatalities.
The absence of safe staffing laws also hurts nurses. One out of 5 new nurses quit nursing within the first year of earning their license. And if the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it’s the extremely stressfully and often life-threatening conditions nurses work in.
Hospital executives and lobbyists are trying to convince us that these ratios will result in rising healthcare costs, hospital closures and under-qualified nurses. The evidence doesn’t support this. In the 15 years since California implemented safe staffing ratios, their patient mortality rate and nurse occupational injury rates both decreased. And since the quality of patient care increased and nurses’ injury claims decreased, it’s likely that healthcare costs and worker’s compensation insurance decreased.
Ensuring appropriate staffing levels is one of the best steps we can take to improve patient outcomes and protect our nurses.
WORKPLACE VIOLENCE
A 2016 survey by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) found that more than 85% of nurses have been physically or verbally assaulted by patients while at work. These attacks result in physical injuries as well as emotional ones, lost wages and decreased morale.
That’s why we need statewide standards to combat widespread violence against nurses. This includes requiring annual safety assessments, training and reporting, as well as time off for nurses who are assaulted so they can address the related legal and health issues.
FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY
Hospitals exist to serve our communities, but all too often they end up serving the interests of the executives who are profiting greatly off of them. Their massive taxpayer-funded profits are shielded in offshore tax havens, while their executives’ compensation is at an all-time high.
Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. As an international tax accountant, I know all too well how moving profits offshore is a strategy used by corporations to evade taxes and minimize transparency. And while this information is arguably available on hospitals’ tax forms, these forms are hard to read and require only high-level information.
By requiring medical facilities that receive taxpayer funding to disclose their financial holdings and profits, taxpayers will have full transparency into what’s happening to their money. Implementing executive compensation limits and requiring excess compensation to be paid back into a fund to increase reimbursements will ensure hospital profits are being used to improve patient care and not to enrich the select few.
MEDICARE FOR ALL
We need to get big money out of healthcare. The United States spends more per person than any other country yet too many of our residents are either uninsured or underinsured and many others are drowning in medical debt.
Medicare For All is a single-payer healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for every single person. It will not only ensure healthcare for all residents (regardless of employment status), it will cost less and removes incentives for hospital CEOs and private equity funds, returning profits back to patient care and nurses’ compensation.
Private insurance companies spend anywhere between 10-30% of every dollar on overhead; public insurance reduces this to less than 5%. Combined with the cost savings of hospitals and medical facilities that no longer need huge billing departments, this funnels more money into increased staffing, decreased patient costs and improved patient care.
DISASTER PROTECTIONS
As we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses at the frontline of disasters take incredible risks. Whether as a paid worker or a volunteer, nurses put themselves on the line to protect the lives and health of all of us. That’s why they deserve protections for their service on the front line.
This includes protection from civil liability as well as expanding benefits to those who are injured or killed in their service. These protections and benefits would apply whether a nurse is serving as a paid worker or a volunteer.