HYANNIS- The Committee to Ensure Safe Patient Care delivered approximately 400 signatures to the Barnstable Town Hall yesterday in support of a law relative to patient safety and hospital transparency.
The Patient Safety Act was created in an effort to improve patient safety in Massachusetts hospitals by setting a safe maximum limit on the number of patients assigned to a nurse at one time, while providing flexibility to hospitals to adjust nurses’ patient assignments based on specific patient needs.
“When nurses care for too many patients at once re-admission rates skyrocket, medical errors occur, and it’s just [an] overall unsafe environment for the patients and the nurses,” says Taylor Marr, Spokesperson for the effort.
In December, the Committee submitted over 100,000 signatures to the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, per the Attorney General’s Initiative Petition Process.
“I’ve been to hospitals in Vegas and even Cape Cod Hospital here, where it’s so busy that I might have 5,6,7 patients which is completely un-safe,” says Justin Bennett, a Traveling Nurse who attended the submission.
The measure will be for voters’ consideration on the 2018 ballot.
For a full list of endorsers, you can click HERE.
BY JOHN BONDAREK- Cape Cod.Com News Center
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