The cause of the hospital staffing crisis is the system hospitals use to staff only the bare minimum of nurses on each shift. Without legislation for nurse-to-patient ratios, patient care is unsafe, and nurses will not keep participating in it. I am constantly agonizing over being a part of a system inflicting harm by design, and I feel a moral obligation as a nurse to speak out.

When I care for a septic patient on antibiotics with dressing changes; a patient with a gastrointestinal bleed; a patient who cannot move and has diarrhea and complex buttocks wounds; a patient in a psychiatric crisis, and a patient with dementia who is jumping out of bed and falling if left alone, excellent care looks like keeping them alive. Those patients will not get their medications on time, I will not chart on them and I will not round on them every hour. Are you still OK with that patient being your child or mother?

Ratios are a non-negotiable safety measure that is proven to work. With more nurses in the building, we can care for more patients and safe staffing saves lives. The Maine Quality Care Act (L.D. 1639) will protect us from inflicting the violence that is poor care and holds Maine hospitals accountable for creating robust staffing plans and safe care environments.

Sadie Tirrell
Portland