Nurse Staffing Effort Dies Amid Union Squabble

 

The differences between AFT-Oregon, which supports legislation to mandate staffing ratios, and the Oregon Nurses Association, which does not, effectively killed efforts to pass Senate Bill 564. The bill received one hearing and never came up for a vote before the Senate Health and Veterans Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-Gresham), a registered nurse.

 

“It’s very difficult when you have one nursing organization that worked hard on the staffing bill from 2005, and both blame the other for not getting together,” Monnes Anderson said. “We need all nurses on board on this one. It would be nice if they come up with a consensus.”

 

In 2005, the ONA and the Oregon hospital association both supported House Bill 2800, which made hospitals create nurse staffing committees where issues of patient care could be resolved. The results have been mixed. Both ONA and hospitals say the committees work. AFT says problems persist.

 

ONA represents more than 12,000 nurses, while AFT-Oregon represents far less.

 

Stay the course was the message from Diane Waldo, RN, spokeswoman for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “Everyone has the same goal of delivering the best patient care,” Waldo said. “The way to ensure this is to continue on the road we’re on. It would be a sham to derail that.”

 

Supporters of mandated nurse-to-patient ratios say it’s absolutely about patient safety. “It reduces costs, decreases nurse turnover and saves lives,” said Kathy Geroux, RN, executive president of AFT-Oregon, which holds union contracts for Kaiser and Providence nurses.

 

Nurse-to-patient staffing ratios can solve the nursing shortage, said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center. Lafer, who studies nurse workforce issues, said staffing levels are the primary reason nurses leave their jobs.

 

“The number of nurses who are choosing not to work in the hospital industry is larger than the actual need,” Lafer said. “If there was a way to improve working conditions, much of the shortage statistically could be solved with the nurses who are out there who already exist.”

 

Legacy Health System and Samaritan Health Services also testified against the bill. The Oregon Nurses Association submitted no formal testimony, and its officials did not respond for comment on this issue.