Registered Nurses from Across Texas Gather at Capitol to Introduce Groundbreaking Patient Protection Act, Rally for Strengthened Role for Nurses - "Texas Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2007" To Be Introduced

Decrying a "Texas-sized healthcare crisis," some 200 registered nurses from cities across the state will gather at the state Capitol next Tuesday, November 14th to introduce the "Texas Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2007," legislation that will significantly improve patient safety and the quality of patient care in Texas hospitals and emergency rooms.  The RNs are members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, the national movement for direct-care RNs, composed of more than 70,000 RNs in 45 states across the country. 

WHAT: Texas RNs Rally for Texas Hospital Patient Protections
WHERE: South Steps of Texas State Capitol, Austin
WHEN: Tuesday, November 14th, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

The Texas Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2007 gives nurses the legal protections and support to provide patients with the care they need, especially as the patient population has grown much sicker in recent years. Texas RNs say the Hospital Patient Protection Act will allow Texas to continue to recruit and retain the best registered nurses in the nation.

The Patient Protection Act would:

• Set minimum RN-to-patient staffing Ratios
• Assure RNs the legal guarantee to serve as patient advocates
• Establish real whistle-blower protections for RNs who expose unsafe conditions

Ratios:
The portion of the law establishing minimum, safe RN-to-patient ratios is modeled on a landmark California law which is improving the quality of care in California and helping the state make significant strides in mitigating the nursing shortage.  The lack of nurses is exacerbated by the unwillingness of many RNs to work in medical settings that unsafely require them to care for too many patients.

In the words of Beverly Leonard, a 40-year Texas RN: "Many of us may not be around for long. Increasingly, nurses are leaving the hospital bedside because working conditions and assignments are dangerously unsafe. Hospital floors are understaffed, nurses are being forced to take care of patients with complex cases in which they have no experience, and no standards exist from hospital to hospital. While some states like California don’t permit an intensive care nurse to take care of more than two patients at a time, we may have as many as three in Texas."

As in California, the Texas RN ratios would require minimum ratios by unit -- a floor for patient safety, with increased staffing when needed based on the severity of patient illness. Research has shown the need for such an approach.  For example, one study found that for every patient above four assigned to a nurse, the mortality rate rises seven percent, according to "Hospital Nurses Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurses, Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction," in the October 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association.  Thus, the difference between an RN caring for 4 patients and an RN caring for 8 patients could be an increase of as much as 28 percent in mortality--endangering thousands of Texas patients per year.

Patient Advocacy and Whistle-blower Protections:
Nurses have an ethical obligation to serve as patient advocates, which in practice can mean standing up to doctors, hospital executives, insurance representatives, or others.  This ethical obligation and practice ensures that all care is provided in the exclusive interests of patients, and not based on budgetary considerations. 

Texas law does not currently recognize this function of RNs, nor does it provide strong whistle-blower protections for RNs who do stand up to unsafe care for their patients.  The Safe Harbor law severely burdens and interferes with RN independent professional practice responsibility, endangering Texas patients.  The Texas Patient Protection Act would remedy this.

In the words of Judy Lerma, Texas RN: "Nurses are patient advocates.  The so-called Safe Harbor law, however, does not provide us enough protection to truly advocate for our patients without fear of retaliation."

About NNOC
The National Nurses Organizing Committee, founded in 2004 by the California Nurses Association, is a new national movement for registered nurses, advance practice nurses, and RN organizations throughout the country who want to pursue a more powerful agenda of patient advocacy that promotes the interests of patients, direct care nurses, and RN professional practice. Hundreds of Texas RNs have signed up to join NNOC since its founding.

NNOC is also the parent group of RNRN, the Registered Nurse Response Network, a national organization dedicated to sending direct-care RNs to communities devastated by natural or other disasters.  RNRN grew out of the relief work performed by NNOC after Hurricane Katrina, when hundreds of RNs were volunteered to assist victims of the disaster in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.