Posts Tagged ‘Dear House Majority Leader’

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Dear House Majority Leader,

The purpose of this letter is to raise your awareness of a dangerous situation that is costing lives and causing needless suffering among patients and residents of persons in Nursing Homes, In-Home care situations, and Hospitals in our State. At this time, in our State and elsewhere in our nation, Nursing Facilities are allowed to staff their facilities according to a, “warm-body,” theory which accepts a level of Nursing and Certified Nursing Assistant staff as, “adequate,” based on the ratio of numbers of residents per numbers of medical staff. The problem with this theory of staffing by the numbers of residents is that the residents have health conditions which vary greatly. Many of these residents require care that demands Nursing and Certified Nursing Assistant time in far greater amounts than other residents, leaving medical personnel without sufficient time for other duties.

Nurses today not only have to work doing, “hands-on,” duties providing medical care, they also have an increasing amount of medical documentation to deal with. Due to the requirements for ever-increasing charting and treatment demands, as well as paperwork associated with transfers from hospitals, reports associated with resident falls, admissions, discharges, medication administration, and many other forms of documentation which remove them from the floor where they provide care, the demands on a Nurse’s time have grown to the point where staffing by acuity of patient needs is much more than just imminent – it is overtly necessary.

As reflected in State Surveys, as well as the failure of Nursing Facilities to meet the requirements by the State, staffing by acuity is past the point of crisis. There are Nurses with years of experience shifting from facility to facility; some are leaving the healthcare field entirely, because of the issue of staffing by acuity. These Nurses, who are the wealth of knowledge and experience in our healthcare field, are leaving and not returning for careers in other fields, such as Legal Nurse Consulting, or a change of career entirely. Who will be there to pass on such wealth of knowledge, Majority Leader? Who will be there to do the Nursing? How will the residents of our State receive the care they need if our Nurses are being worked to the point of depression? How can Nurses provide quality care when they have to pick and choose what treatments they provide due to time limitations?

The Certified Nursing Assistants in Long-Term Care facilities are being worked to the point of exhaustion as well, House Majority Leader. Nursing Assistants often have harder jobs than Nurses themselves, and at a wage that is discriminatory, to be plain. Nursing Assistant wages have not been raised in a decade or more, leaving Nursing Assistants a choice between living in poverty, or working multiple jobs. Overworked Nurses and Nursing Assistants place residents of Nursing Homes at risk.

House Majority Leader – Let our State lead the way in providing an example for the nation. Help the Nurses and Certified Nursing Assistants in our State by supporting their need for staffing by Acuity.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME, R.N or C.N.A.