ADVISORY/California Nurses Association: Hundreds of RNs to March to Preserve Safe RN Staffing Law.

News Editors/Health/Medical Writers

ADVISORY...for Friday (May 14)

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 2004

Hundreds of registered nurses from more than 150 facilities across California will march and rally in Sacramento Friday, May 14 to protest hospital industry efforts to reverse the new patient protections established in California's landmark law requiring minimum safe RN hospital staffing ratios.

RNs will convene at the West Lawn of the State Capitol, 10th & L streets and then march at 12 noon to Sacramento Superior Court, 720 9th St. for 1 p.m. rally prior to a critical court hearing in which a judge may rule on a hospital industry lawsuit to throw out the requirement that the ratio law applies "at all times" while a patient is in the hospital.

The lawsuit, filed by the California Healthcare Association, the lobbying arm of the hospital industry, is based on the premise that "patients should only be entitled to safe care at the beginning of an RN's shift, making enforcement of the law practically unworkable, an open invitation for hospitals to completely disregard the hard won patient protections," said CNA President Deborah Burger, RN.

"It's an argument that stands logic on its head, akin to saying factories may spew poisons into the air or water at night as long as they don't pollute in daylight," said Burger. She noted that the suit seeks to overturn decades of California law that require that hospitals be in "continuous compliance" with patient safety statutes.

RNs will also be protesting other hospital industry attacks on the law, which include a major public relations campaign. That campaign, notes Burger, "poses grave dangers to public safety. Numerous studies document that safe RN staffing reduces preventable patient deaths, accidents, infection rates, and permanent injuries."

-- The Institutes of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences

reports that "nurse staffing levels affect patient outcomes

and safety." Insufficient monitoring of patients, caused by

poor working conditions and the assignment of too few RNs,

increases the likelihood of patient deaths and injuries.

-- Inadequate staffing precipitated one-fourth of all unexpected,

preventable patient deaths, injuries, or permanent loss of

function reported the Joint Commission on Accreditation of

Hospital Organizations, from 1997-2002.

-- Up to 20,000 patient deaths each year can be linked to

preventable patient deaths, according to a study in the

Journal of the American Medical Association found that. For

each additional patient assigned to an RN the likelihood of

death within 30 days increased by 7 percent. Four additional

patients increased the risk of death by 31%.

CNA surveys of RNs have shown that the law has already improved safety conditions at nearly 70% of hospitals in California.

The Safe Staffing Law is also helping to dramatically expand the number of RNs in California. State officials said about 4,900 additional RNs would be needed to meet the demands of the staffing law, numbers far surpassed by the growth of the RN workforce since the law was signed.

Data from the Board of Registered Nursing, the state agency that licenses RNs shows:

-- A huge jump in the overall number of actively licensed RNs in

California -- by 30,000 alone in the past three years, from

255,145 in 2001 to 288,032, as of March 31, 2004.

-- A sharp reversal in the trend of RNs entering and leaving

California. In 1995-1996, 4,168 more RNs left the state than

those who entered from out-of-state. In the first eight months

of fiscal year 2003-2004, for instance, the BRN projected a

net gain of 1,174 RNs.

-- Big increases in the number of new graduate and foreign

trained applicants who take and pass the RN exam and become

new licensees each year in California, for example, 9,197 just

in fiscal year 2002-2003.

More information about the law is available on the CNA website, www.calnurse.org.