Let’s talk about nurse staffing ratio laws today because Christine Drazan would like to remove them. My mother was a nurse for 45 years in a small community hospital in upstate New York. They did not have ratios. She would often support 12 patients for 8 hours by herself. That’s five minutes per patient per hour for folks who just had heart attacks, heart surgery, etc. She was afraid to use the bathroom *her entire shift* because it might mean a patient could die. It was not good.
ORS 441.765 – Staffing ratios for direct care registered nurses
As used in this section, “unit” means a hospital unit as defined by the chief executive officer of the hospital or the…
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