Bill May Change Nurse-to-Patient Ratio; If Nurses are Allowed to Testify
Registered Nurse Patty Eakin prepares for her twelve-hour shift at Temple University Hospital Monday morning knowing it will be a busy day. Eakin says Mondays are usually the busiest day of the week. Patients with injuries from car accidents, stab wounds, and critically ill patients all wait in the full emergency room. When patients reach Eakin, she monitors heart rates, oxygen levels, gives medicine, and inserts IV’s into patients, usually all at the same time. The job is so labor intensive, Eakin says nurses have to be there at least a year before they can work in trauma.
“I believe what nurses do is extremely important work.” Eakin says. “It’s a great change to use your brain and interact in an important way with human beings.”
Eakin says she can work with several patients at the same time. The nurse-to-patient ratio can be one nurse to four critically ill patients in the emergency room where Eakin works.
House bill 147, sponsored by Rep. Tim Solobay (D-Canonsburg), may change the amount of patients nurses are assigned to insure better patient care and allow nurses to monitor patients more effectively.
“The ratio should be one nurse to three [patients in the emergency room],” Eakin says. “In California it’s been the law for thirty years.”
But if Temple implements their proposed non-disparagement clause, nurses would not be able to testify.
