In Business Las Vegas, October 20th, 2006
The nurse-patient ratio campaign that recently drew 500 union supporters to chant and march outside of Valley Hospital is headed to the state Legislature.
Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas, promised on Oct. 13 to introduce a bill that would mandate staffing ratios at Nevada hospitals. The policy is the major issue pushed by the Service Employees International Union Local 1107 in contract talks with hospitals this year.
“There are plenty of registered nurses in Nevada, but not plenty of nurses ready to work for an employer like UHS,” said Koivisto, to the cheers of members of the nurses’, carpenters’, electricians’ and culinary workers’ unions.
The area’s UHS hospitals have been specific targets of protests by the SEIU. The hospital chain’s Valley and Desert Springs hospitals are undergoing contentious negotiations, with multiple accusations cast from both sides to the National Labor Relations Board.
The Oct. 13 event was the second mass protest that the SEIU held across from Valley Hospital, and it was the largest. The protesters took up two long stretches of sidewalk, holding up signs that said “Safe Staffing Saves Lives” and other pro-union messages. They responded to a chant leader on a megaphone with phrases like: “Hey hey, ho ho, understaffing’s got to go.”
“We really go on with business as usual,” said Michele Nichols, chief nurse officer for Valley Hospital, who had received the required 10 day notice about the protest. “We do what we do best, provide patients with the best care. We want our patients to know that we provide safe and quality patient care.”
Valley Health System — the name given to the local UHS hospital group — and the SEIU both argue that a majority of nurses agrees with their side on the issue. Both sides have produced petitions denouncing the other’s tactics.
Las Vegas hospitals with nurses represented by SEIU include the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, University Medical Center, the UHSowned Desert Springs and Valley Hospitals and the Hospital Corporation of America-owned Sunrise and Southern Hills hospitals.
Contracts with the St. Rose hospitals wrapped up quickly, by May, and include the much-debated nurse staffing ratios.
Southern Hills is operating under a contract that will be altered automatically to reflect the contract of its sister hospital, Sunrise. The remaining hospitals have been operating without contracts since early in the summer.
Nichols said she did not want to characterize the mood of negotiations with the nurses’ union or whether she thought a compromise could be reached concerning staffing ratios.
She did distribute two studies denouncing staffing ratios, including a September 2006 article in the Journal of Nursing Administration. It says that nurses can handle different numbers of patients in different situations — for example, community hospitals versus critical care floors — and “there is no single solution that can be identified.”
In 1998 the Legislature responded to requests for staffing ratios by deciding to make hospitals “staff to acuity.” Under the statute, still in place today, nurses calculate how severe a patient is then assign patients based on those scores.
Members of the nurses’ union argue that the system does not work. They say their numbers are stretched so thin that hospitals are unsafe places to be.
“We suggested the St. Rose safe staffing policy, which are by department and by acuity (or level of illness),” said Chris Salm, spokesman for the union. “What we’d like to see from them is any improvement.”
Koivisto said she will talk with the St. Rose administrators before crafting specifics she wants in the bill. She had previously supported staffing ratios in the 2001 and 2003 legislative sessions.
Though she is not a nurse, Koivisto said she became interested in medical issues during the medical malpractice insurance crisis earlier this decade.
“I hadn’t planned on introducing the legislation again,” Koivisto said. “It was such a contentious thing to do … and it just seemed there was no compromise position. Maybe since St. Rose has negotiated that, maybe we can use that as a starting point.”
Cristina Rodriguez covers medical and workplace issues for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2326 or by e-mail at cristina.rodriguez@lasvegassun.com.
