A ballot initiative that would limit the number of patients Massachusetts hospital nurses can see at a given time is gaining momentum.
Nurses from the Massachusetts Nurses Association and other unions across the Northeast recently helped launch a ballot initiative petition drive for signatures to bring the Patient Safety Act before voters next year.
The MNA said the Patient Safety Act would set "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."
Nurses must get 70,000 signatures to put the initiative on the November 2018 ballot. The MNA said the deadline to gather these requisite signatures is Nov. 10, 2017. If enough signatures are gathered and certified, the ballot question will be certified in December. At that point, the state legislature would consider the question between January and June, the MNA said. The union said another 15,000 new signatures will have to be collected in May to June and certified. The union hopes to have the initiative certified in July and up for a vote in November 2018.