Advocacy Alert - Your Action Needed Today!

A new staffing committee bill has been introduced in both chambers of the legislature.

A108-B/Gunther and S1168-A/Rivera (attached) replace the mandated nurse staffing ratios bill, and call for establishment of clinical staffing committees in all general hospitals.  Included are requirements for: membership, responsibilities, voting, reporting, accountability and follow up.

Also included are specifics regarding Department of Health/Commissioner of Health oversight, and appointment of a  State-level Advisory Council of Experts to oversee process, reporting and outcomes, and to report to and advise the Commissioner, Legislative Leaders and the Governor

The bill DOES NOT include rigid, mandated staffing ratios for all units in all hospitals and it DOES include many provisions that NYONEL has promoted including:

• Clinical nurses, nurse leaders, organized labor (where present) and hospital leaders must be responsible and accountable for creating nurse staffing guidelines for individual hospitals.
• Hospitals should establish staffing committees that include representatives from the above groups to develop/review/evaluate/revise facility-specific staffing guidelines.
• Guidelines should minimally take into account the following factors:
  • Tenure and education level of nurses
  • Mix of RN, LPN, and paraprofessional staff per unit
  • Patient acuity
  • Flexibility to account for changes in workload and patient conditions
• Compliance with staffing guidelines should be evaluated on a specific schedule.
• Evaluation should include comparison to a valid, national / regional database
• Patients and families must be informed about the hospital’s commitment to provide safe staffing.

The Senate bill will be considered by the Health Committee on Monday at 10:00 am.  If your State Senator is a member of the committee please contact him/her TODAY urging his/her support for this bill. 

If your Senator is not a Health Committee member please contact him/her at your earliest convenience to urge his/her support.   Thank you for your anticipated prompt response.

Don’t know who your Senator is? Check here: https://www.nysenate.gov/

Health Committee Members are listed here: https://www.nysenate.gov/committees/health Scroll down the page to the individual members, click on individual names and send an email.

Monday’s Health Committee meeting will be live streamed and may be viewed at this link: https://www.nysenate.gov/calendar/meetings/health/april-26-2021/health-meeting