AUGUSTA, Maine — It was a busy day in Augusta for Maine nurses on Thursday as supporters and opponents of a proposed staffing bill held separate press conferences before a public hearing on the legislation.
The legislation, LD 1639, An Act To Address Unsafe Staffing of Nurses and Improve Patient Care, was sponsored by Sen. Stacy Brenner, D-Scarborough.
"It felt really important to support nurses as heroes in a way that’s meaningful," Brenner said during a press conference.
Brenner, who is also a registered nurse, added nurses are overburdened and overworked and haven't been able to give patients the care they deserve due to staffing shortages.
“I think that this is a bill that really appeals to the sense of what it means to value nurses," Brenner added.
The proposed bill would establish specific nurse-to-patient ratios based on the hospital unit and acuity of the patient, Brenner said. Supporters of the legislation said these ratios will improve patient health and protect nurse safety.
Other nurses in support of the move also spoke ahead of Thursday's public hearing on the bill and said this proposal will also make nurses feel more valued and more inclined to stay in the profession.
Also at the State House, opponents of the bill held their own press conference Thursday morning.
The Maine Hospital Association hosted the event which featured speakers representing MaineHealth, Northern Light Health, and Cary Medical Center in Caribou.
“We absolutely need to know we need to be better staffed in our hospitals, but this bill is not the way to accomplish that," Chief Nursing Officer Sharon Baughman with MaineHealth said. “Nurses know how to care for the patients in the hospital best.”
Baughman and other opponents said nurses constantly make patient coverage adjustments based on what's happening at the hospital at a given time.
“The bill is extremely inflexible, and it would completely limit our ability to make those judgments," Mikele Neal, a registered nurse and the associate vice president of patient care services with Eastern Maine Medical Center, said.
Those judgments, and patient diversion to other hospitals, are also crucial in rural communities, according to Chief Executive Officer Kris Doody with Cary Medical Center.
“Taking care of patients and staffing a hospital is not a legislative mandate, it’s a nursing mandate we do every day," Doody added.
If a hospital is found in violation of the ratio mandate under the proposed bill's language, Doody said they would be fined every shift of noncompliance.
Speaking about the opposition to her proposed bill, Brenner said many people against it are hospital executives and managers.
While those executives did speak during the opposition press conference, dozens of registered nurses were there and did testify against the bill.
The public hearing on the bill began Thursday afternoon in front of the Joint Standing Committee on Labor and Housing. The committee will host a workshop on the legislation before a vote could send it to the full Legislature.
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