Anti-Question 1 group ramps up fundraising, spending in final weeks

Photo/Grant Welker The administration at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester has opposed Question 1. A recent poll found that nurses statewide are also slightly more likely to be opposed.

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By Grant Welker

A committee opposed to potential new mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios has stepped up fundraising and spending in the last weeks before the Nov. 6 election.

In just a two-week span ending Oct. 15, the Coalition to Protect Patient Safety — which has been funded almost entirely by a Massachusetts hospital consortium — raised $5.7 million, according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, which keeps political spending records.

The coalition spent nearly as much during that time: about $5.4 million, including more than $3.5 million paid to the Washington advertising and political consulting firm GMMB. Another roughly $845,000 was spent on television advertising on network TV stations in the Boston and Springfield media markets.

[Also read: Labor vs. Administration: Ballot pits nurses against hospitals]

Competing TV ads between the pro- and anti-Question 1 groups have flooded the airwaves for much of the last few months.

A great majority of funding aimed at defeating Question 1 has come from the Burlington-based Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association. The association doesn't detail where its money comes from but says its members include 70 Massachusetts hospitals.

Funding has also been going into the pro-Question 1 organization Committee to Ensure Safe Patient Care, though at lower levels.

The committee reported just under $2.5 million in receipts in the roughly the first two weeks of October and said it spent about as much. Spending wasn't made directly to any television stations, but the most money went to a Tennessee consulting firm, Counterpoint Messaging.

Much of the Committee to Ensure Safe Patient Care's donations have come from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which says it has 23,000 members working in 85 health care facilities.

While hospital administrations are generally against Question 1, nurses appear more mixed: a WBUR poll of 500 registered nurses this month found 48 percent support Question 1, while 45 percent oppose it.

Question 1, if it passes, would apply nurse-to-patient staffing ratios depending on specialty.

In the emergency department, a nurse would be in charge of just one critical or intensive care patient at a time, or two patients if the nurse has assessed each patient’s condition as stable. A nurse could have up to five patients if they are deemed non-urgent stable.

In maternity, a nurse would have just one active labor patient, or up to six patients postpartum. In units with pediatric, medical, surgical or similar cases, nurses would be assigned up to four patients. In units with psychiatric or rehabilitation patients, nurses would see up to five patients.