Boost Funds for Nurse Training

California ranks last among the states in the ratio of hospital nurses to patients, and without help from Sacramento the staffing could well grow thinner. A large survey of nurses on the short-staffing issue finds an increase in readmissions, medication errors, infections and other problems. More studies would be needed to fully document the extent of harm, but it’s clearly a problem.

Last Friday the Legislature’s budget conference committee approved a good short-term solution, allocating $13 million to expand nurse training in the community college and Cal State systems. Today the committee will consider boosting that to $18 million.

Gov. Gray Davis should promptly approve the funding, despite objections from lobbyists representing community college faculties that insist curriculum-specific funding violates their academic freedom. California’s nursing shortage would be less severe today if community college leaders, who cut nursing in favor of physical education in the 1990s, had used their academic freedom more wisely.

After the state budget rush is over, the flight of nurses to states with better working conditions needs to be addressed. Last year, Gov. Davis signed a bill by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) to implement “safe nurse staffing” standards that would prevent hospitals from requiring intensive and critical care nurses to work what the nurses claim are perilously long shifts. Implementation is likely to be delayed for a year, but in the meantime, hospitals should at least begin trying to solve the problem on their own.