BI Deaconess - Needham Comes Out Against Question 1

NEEDHAM, MA — Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - Needham has come out against a ballot question that would create mandated nurse staffing ratios.

The local hospital announced their opposition to Question 1 Tuesday morning. If approved, the Nurse-Patient Assignment Limits Initiative would set limits to how many patients a nurse can have. The limits include, according to the ballot question:

• In units with step-down/intermediate care patients: three patients per nurse.
• In units with post-anesthesia care or operating room patients: one patient under anesthesia per nurse; two patients post-anesthesia per nurse.
• In the emergency services department: one critical or intensive care patient per nurse (or two if the nurse has assessed each patient’s condition as stable); two urgent non-stable patients per nurse; three urgent stable patients per nurse; or five non-urgent stable patients per nurse.
• In units with maternity patients: (a) active labor patients: one patient per nurse; (b) during birth and for up to two hours immediately postpartum: one mother per nurse and one baby per nurse; (c) when the condition of the mother and baby are determined to be stable: one mother and her baby or babies per nurse; (d) postpartum: 6 patients per nurse; (e) intermediate care or continuing care babies: two babies per nurse; (f) well-babies: six babies per nurse.
• In units with pediatric, medical, surgical, telemetry, or observational/outpatient treatment patients, or any other unit: four patients per nurse.
• In units with psychiatric or rehabilitation patients: five patients per nurse.

The hospital said if approved, Question 1 would cost them $2.6 million.

“At BID–Needham, we have some of the most talented and committed nurses and clinicians in the region,” John Fogarty, president and CEO of BID–Needham, said in a release. “This mandate would take away our nurses’ ability to make real-time decisions and the flexibility to deploy resources based on the unique and ever-changing needs of our patients. They are too rigid to implement across the board and would result in devastating cuts to much-needed community resources, patient education and prevention programming. I encourage our community to vote no on Question One to help BID–Needham continue to deliver outstanding care.”

The hospital currently has a deficit of six nurses and Question 1 would increase the need for more nurses, according to the release.

Question 1 will be one of three ballot questions Massachusetts voters will consider during the 2018 state election on Nov. 6.

Image Credit: Dan Libon/Patch