Being a nurse today is hard, but mandatory staffing ratios for hospitals, as is being considered now by the Maine Legislature, are not going to make the job any easier.

High-quality patient care is not about numbers or a ratio. It’s about patients, what they need and how a nurse can meet those needs. Today, we are caring for patients that are sicker than they ever have been. Our patients need more outpatient services, they need more nursing homes and rehab facilities, and, perhaps most importantly, they need more mental health resources.

When these services aren’t available, our nurses are expected to pick up the slack. Nurse ratios will not change the work that the health care system is asking of nurses. We do not need nurse-patient ratios. We need help getting our nurses back to being nurses!

Mandating nurse ratios does not lead to improved quality of care or increased job satisfaction. It will however require more nurses that Maine does not have. Hospitals may need to close inpatient beds, limiting access to care for all Maine people. We need real solutions that will make a hard job easier and solutions that leave all options for care open!

Nurses today face serious challenges, including the threat of workplace violence, scarce support services, complex work environment and job demands, and an overall shortage of qualified nurses. Mandated ratios won’t fix any of these problems.

Jana Drake, RN

Woolwich

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