Patient Safety is being jeopardized in our State's hospitals because there are rarely limitations on mandatory overtime or on the number of patients assigned to each nurse. The result is tragic when you look at the cost of mistakes, injuries and lives lost because nurses couldn’t get to a patient frequently or quickly enough. Yet the hospital industry has opposed safe Patient Care legislation since its introduction. Safe Patient Care legislation has been intoduced this legislative session in both the Senate (Senate Bill 63) sponsored by Senator Patterson and the House (House Bill 4339) sponsored by State Representative Wojno. If passed, these bills will eliminate mandatory overtime and require hospitals to develop acuity based staffing plans and implement minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.

Your help is needed to pass these important bills, take action today!

For more detailed information on the issue of safe staffing and mandatory overtime please visit http://www.seiu.org/docUploads/careshortage_report.pdf.