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Commentary: Concern about patient loads is real
By Jim Monroe 10 June 2010
| SHOREVIEW - The members of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees stand by Twin City nurses today in support of a fair contract. |
Hospitals should listen to their nurses. On a daily basis, nurses are on the front line providing medical care that prevents pneumonia, deaths due to falls, infections, medication errors and other complications that lead to extended stays and death. When a loved one is sick, people need to know that there is a nurse available to watch over their family member.
When nurses request lower patient loads, it is not a union scare tactic.
In 2009, a Minnesota Department of Health study reported that the number of deaths and accidents in our hospitals more than doubled from 125 to 312 – an increase that occurred after the Hospital Association started a statewide campaign to make hospitals safer in 2008. Does it make sense to increase the workload on nurses when medical errors are on the rise?
The Minnesota Nurses Association says that the Twin Cities hospitals are ‘dangerously understaffed.’ It is a sad day in this state when Twin Cities' hospitals make $700 million in one year and then refuse to invest in their nurses – the best asset they have to deliver quality health care.
Jim Monroe is executive director of MAPE, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, which represents more than 12,000 professional employees of the State of Minnesota. |
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