RN Groups Lobby for Nurse-
Patient Ratios Across the Country Throughout the country, nurses are pushing for legislation
that will regulate how many patients one nurse can tend to.
“Essentially what we have found in California is that the numbers have proven that when you increase nurse-to-
patient ratios, nurses want to work in acute care offices,” said Liz Jacobs, RN, MSN spokesperson for the California Nurses
Association (CNA) and the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC).
Studies on whether or not fewer patients per nurse affects patient outcomes are muddled, but U.S. nurses continue to push the issue, calling the high ratios unsafe for patients.
An acute care setting is where the heart of nursing is.” The NNOC has been working with other state nursing unions and organizations to petition lawmakers into drafting staffing ratio legislation. In an effort to persuade lawmakers, the Arizona Nurses Association is staging a Nurses Lobby Day on Tuesday, Feb. 5, where nurses will go to the state capitol en masse to lobby for change.
The Texas Nurses Association has been working with their hospital association to get a half measure bill with they passed.” Unfortunately, not all ratio legislation is as effective as the NNOC would hope.
Without a union to protect them, many nurses will not be offered the same level of job protection that California nurses have.