California nurses have started 2005 on the offensive with an ad campaign directed at their nemesis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nurses are peeved that the governor has shelved a law requiring tougher nurse-patient ratios. The law, signed by former Gov. Gray Davis, was set to go into effect Jan. 1. But lobbying by the state’s hospital association convinced Schwarzenegger to put the rules in cold storage for three years.
Hospitals claim the nurse rules, which call for one nurse to be on duty for every five patients in their beds among other requirements, are tough to meet financially and practically,there aren’t enough nurses out there already, they argue.
“Cutbacks in hospital services are becoming all too common as hospitals strive to comply with these regulations,” said Duane Dauner, president of the California Hospital Association.
But nurses charge that patients will suffer without the rules. Their ad campaign challenges Schwarzenegger’s depiction of the California Nurses Association as “a special interest who don’t like me because I am always kicking their butt.”
So the nursing union has countered with ads featuring Southland nurses who lament the tabling of the nursing law. The ads are airing on several cable networks, including CNN, Fox News, Lifetime, the Food Channel, Oxygen, A & E; and the Learning Channel.
In the past, Orange County hospitals said they’d have enough nurses to meet the ratio’s requirements by hiring nurses for night shifts and in their “float pools.”
“There will be challenges throughout the industry,” said Lisa Reiser, chief nursing officer at UCI Medical Center in Orange, about the ratios. “We will do our best to make things happen.”
During the three-year delay, the state Department of Health Services is expected to study the effects of the ratio law.
Hospitals believe the state should be doing more to draw nurses to California, which ranks No. 49 in the U.S. in registered nurses per residents, said Rick Martin, vice president of patient care at Hoag Memorial Hospital Pres-
byterian in Newport Beach, in a previous interview.
“The schools of nursing are still only producing 50% of what we need to meet our demand,” Martin said. “The rest are coming from other states or other countries. The state needs to put more funds into schools of nursing.”
California State University, Fullerton, saw its bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in nursing shoot up in recent years from about 60 in 1998 to more than 400 last year.
But Cal State Fullerton officials said many of their nursing students already are in the workforce and working on advanced degrees,the school isn’t introducing enough fresh graduates to do much to fix the nursing shortage.
The university does work with local community colleges such as Saddleback College and healthcare service providers to boost awareness of nursing as a possible career.
Meanwhile, the law’s delay has provided more fuel to the long-running tiff between the nursing union and the hospital association.
Not surprisingly, the California Hospital Asso-
ciation applauded the governor’s executive order delaying the nursing rules.
The Sacramento trade group long has argued that the state’s nursing shortage would make it difficult for hospitals to ramp up and meet those staffing requirements.
To boost its case, the hospital group points to a report from the state’s Employment Development Department that forecasts that the state will need nearly 110,000 new registered nurses by 2010.
The nursing shortage has boosted salaries, said hospital officials. They said they’ve offered bonuses and flexible hours to recruit more nurses.
OC registered nurses earned an average of $61,267 in 2004, up from $50,810 six years ago, according to the Employment Dev-
elopment Department.
On the other hand, Schwarzenegger’s actions, along with his proposal to eliminate the state Board of Registered Nursing, inflamed the California Nurses Association,one of the more aggressive, media-savvy labor organizations in the state.
“(The governor) has showed he is more concerned with hospital industry profits than with the safety of all of us who would be patients,” said Deborah Burger, the union’s president.
The union, which represents some 60,000 members around the state, including nurses at UCI Medical Center in Orange, has been waging a publicity offensive against Schwarzenegger, staging demonstrations and testifying at public hearings.
One of the latest missiles in the battle came earlier this month, when the California Hospital Association’s Dauner challenged the nursing union to “begin addressing the nursing shortage” and said that the state’s hospitals have contributed more than $50 million toward boosting nursing education programs.
Pointing out that the California Nursing Association represents a quarter of the registered nurses in California, the hospital group said that the union “is continuing to mislead the public by claiming that there is no nursing shortage. Their assertions simply defy the facts,” Dauner said.
“(The nursing union) collects tens of millions of dollars each year in union member dues,” Dauner said. “If CNA is truly committed to patient safety and successful implementation of California’s nurse-to-patient ratio regulations, then the union should be eager to contribute some of its resources to nursing programs. This is the only way California’s nursing shortage will ultimately be resolved.”
The drive to get nursing ratios into law was fueled by claims from the nursing union and other groups that years of hospital cutbacks and managed care made the profession intolerable and dangerous to patients’ health.
Their efforts paid off in 1999, when then-governor Davis signed the bill into law.
Before it took effect, however, Davis was recalled from office, with moderate Schwarzenegger winning on a plank of fiscal conservatism and a desire to release the state’s business community from what he considered excessive regulation.
