FINALLY, A LAW — PEF President Roger Benson addresses health care workers in April at the signing ceremony for the Whistleblower Protection Law in New York City. Pictured are Gov. George Pataki, Assembly Member Catherine Nolan, Benson and nurses of the Village Care Nursing Home. — Photo by Bill Sachs Time to act on nursing issues By ROGER E. BENSON No job title in PEF better illustrates the devastating effects of short staffing on the quality of services and the personal lives of our members than the title “nurse.” Though our nurses endure some of the most horrendous and dangerous working conditions in the state, they continue to provide quality service to the citizens of New York. They are continually asked to do more with less, stretching the state’s system of patient care nearly to the breaking point. They cope with severe understaffing, leading to unsafe patient caseloads and mandatory overtime. They work long hours administering powerful medicines. Many nurses work with a clientele that is younger and more violent than clients they served in the ’80s and ’90s. Combining these factors can become a prescription for disaster. Conditions such as these are what created the current crisis in nursing care. Many members have told me they have been forced to care for dozens of patients for up to 16 hours at a time. Other nurses have been forced to choose between discipline and their professional credentials, or caring for their families when they are forced to work overtime because staffing is so inadequate there are not enough nurses to cover the workload when another nurse is ill. It is surprising that, while there are safety limits on the number of hours pilots, truck drivers and locomotive engineers can work, state agencies routinely force nurses to work double shifts of 16 hours. While the state has begun to recognize that a crisis exists, its response has been woefully inadequate — performing study after study, rather than confronting and addressing the issue. The state has taken a Band-Aid approach to the problem rather than providing a comprehensive solution that will make careers in nursing more attractive. The state’s nursing issues are the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a precursor to the looming nursing disaster in both the public and private sectors within New York state. PEF is working to enact legislation that will alleviate many of the problems facing our nurses, such as an end to mandatory overtime, developing safe staffing ratios, and quality-care indicators — steps that will restore the proper staffing level and make careers in nursing more appealing. The solution won’t be cheap, yet the state has time and again properly found the resources and the will to address critical issues in other areas such as education and nursing home workers. I can think of few issues more important than providing quality nursing care. The time to act is now.