Hospitals scramble to find nurses | AP | 3.27.05
Court order requires compliance with staffing-ratio law
LOS ANGELES - California hospitals are scrambling to meet a new court order to have one nurse for every five patients around the clock - and officials say most are failing to reach the goal.
Some hospitals have tried to close the gap by hiring nurses from registry services and having staffers work more hours.
“Our Band-Aid, if you will, or solution today is contract labor and overtime,” said Carol Bradley, chief nursing officer for the Tenet California chain. …
“Closures of beds and increased diversions and increased wait times are becoming common again,” said Jan Emerson, a spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association.
“Even if money came down from heaven and paid for all of the extra costs, you still can’t find the nurses,” she said. …
At Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, more patients are being held in the ER - but not just because of the latest court order, said Holly Worley, an emergency room nurse.
“There just aren’t enough RNs, period, and that was happening way before we had nursing ratios,” she said.
The 60,000-member California Nurses Association said the ratio will make hospitals safer. But hospitals complain that it’s virtually impossible to obey the law throughout the day because the ratio must be met every time new patients swell wards and even when a nurse takes a coffee break.
“Eighty-five percent of the hospitals are out of compliance at any given time with the old ratios. The new ratios only make them more out of compliance,” said Jim Lott of the Hospital Council of Southern California, which represents about 190 public, private and nonprofit hospitals. …
Well said Holly!