Thirty percent of New Jersey's more than 165,944 licensed RNs have left hospitals throughout the last four years, and 95 percent of the state's new nurses are considering the same, My Central Jersey reported March 21.
With the rippling effects of the nationwide healthcare workforce shortage, unions say it is time for the state to implement nurse-to-patient ratios or "nurses will continue to leave the state's acute care hospitals [that are] already facing a skilled nursing shortage," Insider NJ reported.
However, the state's hospital association is opposed and says that during a nursing shortage, ratios will only "remove the flexibility hospitals need to treat their patients," according to My Central Jersey.
The state's largest nurses union, Health Professionals and Allied Employees, is planning to hold a rally May 11 in Trenton, N.J., in support of staffing bill NJ-S304/A-4536, which seeks to establish "minimum registered professional nurse staffing standards for hospitals and ambulatory surgery facilities and certain [Department of Human Services] facilities."
"Our healthcare system is in crisis as we continue to lose dedicated healthcare professionals to burnout and stress," Debbie White, RN, president of Health Professional and Allied Employees, told My Central Jersey. "The No. 1 reason nurses are leaving hospitals is because of poor staffing."