Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we'll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
After a historic wave of strikes, marches and informational pickets by nurses, and dozens of new successful nursing organizing campaigns across the country, registered nurses have brought their fight to Congress to fix the crisis of unsafe nurse staffing levels in hospitals across the country. The Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), establishes minimum RN-to-patient ratios for every hospital unit, effective at all times. Additionally, the legislation creates whistleblower protections to ensure that nurses are free to speak out for enforcement of safe staffing standards.
Leaders with National Nurses United (NNU) refuted industry claims of a “nurse shortage,” arguing that congressional and industry leaders must create safer, sustainable conditions in hospitals so nurses will return to and stay at the bedside.
“This staffing crisis was manufactured by the hospital industry,” said Deborah Burger, RN and an NNU president. “Hospital executives claim there is a nursing ‘shortage,’ but we know that many nurses have left the bedside because they are unwilling to risk their patients’ lives by being forced to care for them in an unsafe manner. This bill would bring them back to providing direct care at the bedside and in clinics by ensuring their patients receive proper, safe, optimal, and timely care. The bill’s introduction is a direct response to the escalating staffing crisis in hospitals across the country. Tens of thousands of nurses have spoken out, marched, and struck for safer patient care conditions over the last year, sounding a clarion call for action. Nurses know the quality of our healthcare system is on the line and depends on the passage of this bill.”