Voters deny nurse staffing ratios ballot initiative
Hospital administrators won in their fight against a ballot question that would have set mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, but both sides — hospital leaders and a major nurses union — spent the aftermath of the Nov. 6 midterm election pledging to improve patient care.
“This is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. Question 1 forced some difficult and necessary discussions about the future of health care and the future of our workforce going forward,” Steve Walsh, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association's president and CEO, said on election night.
“These conversations with our care teams and in our communities have been critically important and will continue in bargaining sessions, legislative debates, boardrooms and newspapers,” he said. “These are conversations we owe to the voters. Most importantly, these are conversations we owe to our patients.”
Despite the setback, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which fought for the new standards, said it will continue fighting for better patient care.
“This issue is now in the public, finally outside the walls of the hospitals,” Donna Kelly-Williams, the association president, said in a statement Tuesday night. “Nurses – in spite of aggressive intimidation by their employers – have engaged the public outside their workplace like never before.
“Along the way, hospitals have admitted there is a problem," Kelly-Williams added. "They just don't want to be held accountable with limits. We'll wait, along with those patients in harm's way, to see what their proposed solution is.”
The disagreement over Question 1 wasn't over whether hospitals need to provide better care, or at least continue to provide the best care it can. The Massachusetts Nurses Association wanted mandated staffing ratios that would have meant thousands of new jobs across the state.
The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, which represents hospitals across the state, said additional costs would have crippled other operations. The association provided the bulk of $25 million collected by the Coalition to Protect Patient Safety, which fought against Question 1.
In the end, Massachusetts voters swiftly rejected proposed standards on hospital nursing staff-to-patient ratios, backing hospital administrations in their battle against the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
In public polling, public sentiment against the question appeared to sour after a report in early October from the state's Health Policy Commission said the staffing standards would have increased costs for hospitals by up to $949 million a year.
Question 1 was voted down, 70 percent to 30 percent, according to The Associated Press. Voters in nearly every community in the state rejected the question, including in Worcester, where it failed 60 percent to 40 percent, the AP reported on the Nov. 6 election.
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