Hospital Staffing Law Is Upheld

A Sacramento County Superior Court judge rejected Wednesday an attempt by a hospital industry group to weaken a new law requiring hospitals to reduce the number of patients each nurse cares for.

Since January, the state’s Safe Staffing Law has mandated that hospitals to have at least one registered nurse for every six patients in the general wards and one for every four patients in emergency rooms.

However, some of California’s approximately 500 hospitals say they have been unable to hire enough nurses to meet the ratios.

The California Healthcare Assn., an organization of hospitals, filed suit in December to block the measure, especially the stipulation that ratios should apply even when nurses were at lunch or on breaks.

But Judge Gail D. Ohanesian upheld the law language, saying in a 12-page decision that the ratios would be meaningless if they weren’t applied “at all times.”

“This was such an insidious attempt by the healthcare industry to evade the ratios,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Assn., which has 57,000 members. “Nurses are sky-high after this victory. They feel vindicated.”

California Healthcare Assn. spokeswoman Jan Emerson said the group was disappointed by the ruling and might appeal.

Hospital executives have said the staffing ratios are impossible to maintain at all times and leaves them vulnerable to state sanctions and legal action. The measure was signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis four years ago, and the staffing ratios were set after lengthy debate.

“The judge’s ruling essentially handcuffs a hospital’s ability to guarantee access to timely healthcare services to every patient who needs our care,” said Dorel Harms, vice president of the hospital group. “The constant assigning and reassigning of patients to different nurses throughout a shift is both disruptive and not in the best interest of quality patient care.”

Hospitals contend that in attempting to comply with the law, facilities may be forced to delay admitting patients, discharge patients sooner than desirable or cancel elective surgeries.

The California Healthcare Assn. claims that 85% of the state’s hospitals are unable to comply with the new ratios.

The state Department of Health Services, which is responsible for enforcing the law, has found 18 staffing deficiencies at hospitals since the law went into effect Jan. 1, department spokeswoman Lea Brooks said Wednesday.

This year, the state has received 61 complaints of law violations from patients, family members and other sources, and 68 from hospitals that voluntarily admitted they were out of compliance.

“We are still investigating all these,” Brooks said. “But so far none of these investigations have found that patients were harmed because the hospitals were out of compliance.”

If the state investigates and finds deficiencies, hospitals are then required to submit proposals on how they will fix their staffing problems.

Hospitals where deficiencies were found include Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Hemet Valley Medical Center, San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton and Kindred Hospital in San Leandro, Brooks said.