We love nurses! Whether as a patient or a health care provider, we acknowledge the vital role they play in providing quality medical care. We do not have enough nurses! Ballot Question 1 would mandate rigid and arbitrary nurse to patient staffing ratios. This would require hiring more nurses. But where would they come from? One clinic would have to hire from another, “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
This would result in staffing shortages, leading to closures. The higher costs of additional staffing would further stress community hospitals and small clinics, resulting in cuts to vital services. A nurse who has to leave work for some personal emergency or illness could mean a $25,000 penalty to her clinic or hospital, fines that would further drive up health care costs. We value nurses and empathize with their concerns. But a government mandate is not the way to improve safety.
It has not done so in California, which ranks lower than Massachusetts in all measures of patient safety following the passage of a similar mandate. By contrast, Massachusetts ranks in the top five states for patient safety in The Commonweath Fund’s and others’ rankings.
Please vote “no” on Question 1. Its passage would be catastrophic for our struggling community hospitals and for other health care facilities in Western Massachusetts.
Ilana L. Schmitt, MD, MPH, Hampshire District President Massachusetts Medical Society
Sunderland