Contact: Carol Feuss
Director of Communication and Integrated Marketing
Michigan Nurses Association
517/349-5640, ext. 39 or (cell) 517/230-4086
carol.feuss@minurses.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RESEARCH SHOWS MANDATORY OVERTIME
FOR MICHIGAN NURSES THREATENS SAFE PATIENT CARE
(Lansing, Michigan) The Michigan Nurses Association
(MNA) the voice for Michigan’s 114,000 Registered
Nurses and the state’s largest nurses union,
today released a comprehensive commissioned research
report prepared by Public Policy Associates, Incorporated
(PPA) of Lansing, which provides evidence showing
hospitals that force registered nurses to work mandatory
overtime are threatening the safety and quality
of care to patients.
Proposed Safe Patient Care legislation amends the
Public Health Code to prohibit the practice of mandatory
overtime which forces exhausted nurses in short-staffed
facilities to work long consecutive hours. The bill
also requires hospitals to develop staffing plans
and implement minimum patient-to-nurse ratios to
promote the safe care of patients throughout Michigan
hospitals. A Senate committee hearing is pending
on Safe Patient Care legislation.
Research gathered earlier this year by PPA proves
that Safe Patient Care legislation will save lives
and cut future health care costs for Michigan patients
and hospitals.
“All the research we’ve gathered to
date clearly shows that mandatory overtime imposed
on exhausted nurses contributes to preventable medical
errors and puts patient lives at stake,” said
Laurence S. Rosen, Ph.D., Health Care Policy Analyst
for Public Policy Associates who coordinated the
research effort. “Mandatory overtime forced
on nurses threatens patient safety and the quality
of patient care. The research clearly shows that
when nurses are required to work excessive hours,
the risk of medication errors is higher, nurses
have a slower reaction time to make critical care
decisions, and the threat of hospital-acquired infections
and ulcers dramatically increases.”
“We know that Safe Patient Care legislation
will save lives and money,” said Cheryl Johnson,
RN, President of the Michigan Nurses Association.
“Patients and nurses face unsafe conditions
today and Michigan must work to eliminate both mandatory
overtime for nurses and establish minimum patient-nurse
staffing ratios. Michigan needs to enact Safe Patient
Care legislation now!”
The Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) is the voice
of Michigan’s 114,000 registered nurses and
is the largest nurses’ union in the State
of Michigan. For 100 years, the MNA has promoted
the economic and general welfare of nurses in the
workplace, fostered high standards of nursing practice,
and lobbied the legislature and regulatory agencies
on health care issues affecting nurses and recipients
of nursing services. MNA is a constituent member
of the American Nurses Association and the United
American Nurses, as well as an affiliate of the
AFL-CIO.
-###-
The Michigan Nurses Association,
nurses’ voice for 100 years, is the largest
nurses’ union in the State of Michigan. The
Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) promotes the economic
and general welfare of nurses in the workplace,
fosters high standards of nursing practice, and
lobbies the legislature and regulatory agencies
on health care issues affecting nurses and recipients
of nursing services. MNA is a constituent member
of the American Nurses Association and the United
American Nurses, as well as an affiliate of the
AFL-CIO.
05/23/05
