20 HEALTH • June 15, 2015
Hospitals, nurses still spar on ICU law
\\ By Livia Gershon
L
ast June, it looked like Massachusetts
hospitals, nurses, Democrats and
Republicans had finally reached a
point of agreement on the
controversial, never-ending debate over
mandating nurse-staffing ratios.
Before the truce, the Massachusetts Nurses
Association (MNA) had proposed a ballot
question that would have set specific numbers
of patients that RNs could care for in for
various units of the state's hospitals. Under
pressure from that proposal, as well as a second
NO END IN SIGHT TO
NURSE STAFFING DEBATE
PHOTO/DREAMSTIME.COM
