Hundreds of nurses from around New York State rallied in Albany today, pushing the State Legislature to enact a legal limit on how many patients one nurse can care for at a time.
The Public Employees Federation, New York Nurses Association and other unions representing nurses around the state say economic pressures force hospitals to keep increasing workloads. They say too many patients means some won’t get adequate care.
They want more transparency about hospital staffing levels, a safe nurse-to-patient ratio established for each hospital and they say nurses should be trained for the units they’re assigned to, for instance, Emergency Department nurses should be specially trained for that duty.