Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
One of the many challenges nurses have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic is increasingly unsafe levels of staffing. The evidence is quite clear that creating and enforcing valid RN-to-patient staffing ratios save lives, especially during a pandemic. The California Nurses Association/NNU successfully pushed for adequate safe staffing ratios, and both nurses and patients have benefited from the better level of care provided.
National Nurses United (NNU) is pushing for national RN-to-patient safe staffing ratios based on science: “Every patient deserves a single standard of high-quality care. Decades of research have documented how safe staffing reduces patient mortality, re-admission to the hospital post discharge and recovery. Ratios, coupled with nurses’ powerful voice of advocacy, and secured in federal law and regulation and in our union contracts, would protect our patients from complications that arise from missed care such as medical errors, health care disparities, infections and so much more.”