When nurses stand on the steps of our nation’s capital, it is a warning that something is seriously wrong in health care. Much like a canary in the coal mine, nurses are the barometer of the health of our hospitals, nursing homes and health care facilities.
On May 12th 2016, nurses from around the United States convened on our nation’s capital for the first time in 20 years to call for safe staffing. This event was not organized by any nursing union: It was organized by regular nurses from grassroots nursing organizations like Show Me Your Stethoscope, Nurses for National Patient Ratios, and Voices for Nurses Now. They came on their own volition and finances to call for safe staffing to save patient lives.
The conditions in our nation’s hospitals, nursing homes and health care facilities are demanding that nurses take more patients with fewer resources than nurses can safely manage in the name of profit over care. Nurses are being forced to carry eight patients on medical surgical floors (12 over the course of their shift between admissions and discharges), four patients in the ICU, 40 patients in long term care units and the numbers are growing daily across the United States in every health care facility, hospital, and nursing home. Nurses are constantly being asked to do more with less. The result is patients are dying.
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