skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Report says a second Trump term would add 4 billion tons of climate pollution; Trump predicts a bloodbath for the country if he is defeated in November's election; Nevada leaders discuss future of IVF, abortion in the Silver State; and anglers seek trawler buffer zone as Atlantic herring stock declines.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

NY Nurses Push for Safe Staffing Bill

play audio
Play

Monday, May 15, 2017   

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Assigning too many patients to a single nurse can be dangerous. That's the message nurses want state legislators to hear.

Nurses from across the state are calling for passage of the Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act. The bipartisan bill has almost 100 co-sponsors in the State Assembly and nearly 30 in the Senate.

According to Anne Goldman, who chairs New York State United Teachers' Health Care Professionals Council, the under-staffing at hospitals puts health and lives of patients at risk.

"If we do not have a legislative mandate for staffing, the employer does not provide the adequate number of nurses necessary to provide optimum care,” Goldman said.

Opponents of the measure say hospitals and nursing homes should have flexibility to develop their own staffing levels tailored to patient needs. But nurses argue that administrators too often make cutting costs their top priority.

Goldman pointed out that, while patients in intensive care often get a 1-to-1 patient-to-nurse ratio, the medical and surgical units in hospitals frequently are understaffed.

"We have large numbers of patients to nurses, which does not make sense,” she said. "It exceeds what is reasonable to meet the patient care needs correctly."

The bill would also require hospitals to staff units with nurses who are trained for care in that unit.

Goldman said studies have shown that maintaining optimal patient-to-nurse ratios improves health outcomes. And, she added, the people doing the work know what it takes to get it done.

"I'm a nurse. I'm the person administering the care. It should be my input, my judgement, my choice - not someone that's a layperson heading the business,” Goldman argued.

California is currently the only state with legally-mandated nurse staffing levels.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021