The arguments for and against Question 1 on the ballot, the nursing question, are confusing. Is this a clear labor vs. management issue, so that it is easy for some of us to decide which way we will vote? No.
The mandated nurse-to-patient ratio sounds good: We all want more nurses at all times! But as a former state representative and current Cooley Dickinson board member, I can see that if it passes, it would produce unintended and undesired results.
An example: If, at Cooley Dickinson, a nurse who was scheduled to work in the medical/surgical unit was unable to come to work, the hospital — unless it could immediately find a replacement — would be out of compliance with the mandated staffing ratio. Any incoming patients would have to wait in the Emergency Department until someone was discharged.
This scenario could be repeated all over the hospital. If the Emergency Department was full of people and another unit was not, the nurse manager couldn’t decide to send some of nurses to help out in the ED.
The impulse behind this question is good. Of course we want plentiful nurses! But this ballot initiative is a heavy-handed attempt to mandate working conditions in hospitals, territory that is unfamiliar to most of us.
I hope you will join me in voting NO on Question 1.
Ellen Story
Amherst