I hope you will vote “No” on ballot Question 1, and preserve flexibility in patient care. As a cardiac nurse who worked 25 years in a major city hospital (Baystate Medical Center in Springfield), I think this potential law is extremely limiting to patient care, and will severely impact the smaller hospitals in our area, driving some of them out of business. It will make waits in the ER’s impossible and cause health care costs to rise drastically.
There are nowhere near the amount of trained nurses in this state to cover such a mandate. The Massachusetts Nurses’ Association supports this measure, but the American Nurses’ Association does not. Nurses and support staff work as a team to care for patients. There are tasks (such as taking vital signs, cleaning and repositioning patients, answering call bells) that can very well be delegated to nurses’ aides, and a good team jumps in to benefit the patients. Trained nurses are in charge, and take care of all medications, treatments and emergencies, but are always willing to do the more menial tasks as well.
A “Flex Nurse” program uses a group of specially trained nurses who are paid extra to work on units needing extra help, and sometimes change assignments during their shift to take care of sick calls by staff or an extra load from the emergency room. Flexibility in the care of patients is paramount, since it is never known from day to day what emergencies will arise (flu epidemic? local accident or shooting? explosion at a plant? random group of heart attacks or strokes at the same time? dying patient with family members present and in need of support?)
Ballot measure 1 will critically limit any flexibility, and I do not believe it will benefit patient care.
M. Patterson Field
Northfield