 |
|
| Editorial: Nursing a debate along |
| Publication: Boston Herald |
|
The Massachusetts Nurses Association continues to show a preference for playing politics over having a serious debate about patient care. That's too bad, because the issue of severe shortages in the nursing field needs such a debate – to put it in teen lingo– like, yesterday. ``Whatever'' seems to be the best response the MNA can come up with, turning to ad hominem attacks against one of the more thoughtful lawmakers on health care issues, Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge). A political cartoon on the MNA's Web site depicts Moore as a puppet of the hospital industry, a sophomoric attack that's as childish as it is unfair. Modest improvement in nurse vacancy rates in the state's acute care hospitals do not change the fact that there is a crisis just over the horizon. A survey recently released by the Massachusetts Hospital Association indicated nurse vacancies reported in 2005 were 6.4 percent, down from 6.8 percent in 2004 and 8.5 percent in 2003. But according to hospital industry officials, the federal government still sees the state's current shortage (some 5,000 full time equivalent positions) quadrupling over the next 15 years. Moore has rightly emphasized the problem of training and recruiting nurses – like those lingually challenged teenagers now choosing colleges and careers – by sponsoring the ``Patient Safety Act,'' targeting resources at hiring nursing faculty and expanding nurse training. The MNA refuses to budge from its insistence that mandated nurse/patient ratios are the only solution, putting legislators in the position of micromanaging basic hospital personnel matters. But apparently the MNA doesn't mind legislators as puppets – so long as they get to pull the strings. |