As a bedside nurse at Maine Medical Center, I endorse mandated staffing ratios as an excellent way to bolster patient safety and nurse retention. It is obvious. If you are busier, you have less time with each patient, and you are more likely to make a mistake. As a bedside nurse, that is on my license and that is on my conscience.

Maine Medical Center will argue that they already have ratios, and that the bill now before legislators (L.D. 1639) would make their staffing inflexible and take away nurse autonomy, which isn’t true. In the current system, I have no autonomy in deciding to take another patient. That decision is made by administration, who legally cannot work directly with patients because they do not maintain competencies, so they do not see the consequences of their decisions firsthand.

While Maine Medical Center has target ratios, it frequently goes over those ratios, and there is no consequence when that happens – except perhaps worse patient outcomes from overloading the already-exhausted bedside nurse. It is no wonder my bedside nurse colleagues are leaving in droves. While this bill won’t solve all the issues facing bedside nursing today, I do believe it will provide needed management accountability and vastly improve nurse retention and patient safety.

In Maine, we have mandated ratios for child care workers. We need mandated ratios for nurses and patients, too.

Julianna Hansen
Portland