EMMC nurses decry staffing cuts they say jeopardize patient care

Editor’s Note: An incomplete version of this story ran in several editions of the Friday paper. This is a complete, updated version. The NEWS apologizes for any confusion this caused.

Eastern Maine Medical Center’s new policy requiring most nurses to take responsibility for more beds puts patients at risk, representatives of the nurses union said Thursday afternoon at a rally in Cascade Park.

About 50 members of the Maine State Nurses Association’s EMMC unit attended.

Speaker after speaker decried the staffing rules that they said are already resulting in patients having to wait longer for medicine and other care.

“The nurses on the floor are being asked to take more and more patients,” said Stephen Babin, a nurse who works at EMMC. “You couple that with experienced nurses leaving … it’s just not safe.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to get simple things like IVs started,” said John Hanlon, a nurse on the cardiac floor.

Hospital administrators began implementing the new rules last month.

So far everything is going well, a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon.

The new plan has increased the workload of a registered nurse in all noncritical units of Maine’s second-largest hospital. Those nurses are now generally responsible for five patients instead of four during the day.

At night, the number of patients per nurse rises to seven. Charge nurses are freed from having patients, except when nurses call in sick.

In addition, one nurse technician is required for every 10 patients. Some duties of registered nurses are being reassigned to other workers.

Hospital administrators say the new guidelines are flexible in that staffing is increased when needed based on the illness of patients. The experience level of nurses on the floor is also factored into how many nurses are necessary to meet the existing situation, a hospital spokeswoman said Friday.

Lorraine Rodgerson, EMMC’s vice president of nursing, said last month that many hospitals use the new staffing plan.

“I don’t think it will make any difference to patients,” she said.

A hospital spokeswoman explained Friday that the hospital is using all sorts of measures to determine how well the plan is working to ensure that patients don’t see a difference. The measures include items such as patient outcomes and lengths of stay.

Registered nurses who spoke Thursday argued that the administration should have sought their opinions before creating the new policies.

Last month, Greg Howat, EMMC’s vice president of human resources, said comment from direct care nurses was not necessary or required because nurse supervisors and physicians involved in developing the rules “are more in tune with the issues of quality of care.”

The administration wanted “to circumvent our input,” EMMC nurse Patty Martin said at the Thursday rally. “It’s painful to think we are so poorly regarded as professionals.”

The Maine State Nurses Association, which also represents some nonunion nurses, supported a recent legislative proposal that would have mandated nurse-to-patient ratios. In place of the strict California-style ratios that were proposed, MSNA, the Maine Hospital Association, the Organization of Maine Nursing Executives and other groups agreed to a rule-making compromise that would mandate that bedside nurses be consulted at least annually on staffing ratios. The Department of Human Services is refining rules for the new policy.

Not everyone at the rally Thursday was a nurse. John Dieffenbacher-Krall, co-director of the Maine People’s Alliance, said he came to the rally to support the nurses. When nurses speak about patient care, people should listen, he said.

Judith Brown, president of MSNA’s EMMC unit, said the complaints over the new staffing requirements are headed toward arbitration.

Brown said EMMC has had one of the better staffing ratios in the past, but the new requirements threaten that. They also are spurring experienced nurses to leave the hospital even as there’s a growing shortage of nurses.

“We think in many cases this could be a dangerous situation,” said Brown.