There are growing concerns among nurses across Massachusetts that a staffing crisis is causing burnout and impacting patient care.
The past year and a half has seen more than 12,000 unsafe staffing reports, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which is arguing that nurses are having to care for too many patients at once.
Nurses made another pitch Wednesday to lawmakers on Beacon Hill, hoping for limits on the number of patients to whom they're assigned in Massachusetts hospitals.
"Nurses are constantly being asked to do more with less," Constance Cummings, a nurse with Falmouth Hospital, said during a legislative hearing Wednesday. "But the real people doing with less are the patients, less attention, less interaction, less observation and less safe care."
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The MNA has been lobbying to get legislation passed to limit the number of patients they see on any given day for nearly 30 years.
The argument is that nurses are being forced by hospitals to tend to six to eight patients, or more, at a time — with the nurse's association saying that's double what is considered safe, citing a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Another concern is that fewer nurses will be willing to work under the current conditions.
Meanwhile, hospitals have been pushing to pass a bill that would make a pandemic-era provision allowing soon-to-be nurses and recent graduates to start practicing a permanent measure.
Currently, there are about 19,000 job vacancies in Massachusetts hospitals, according to the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association.
A new bill addressing the issue will be discussed during a hearing at the State House on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
