Orsburn Stone, a nurse at Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas, attends a rally Thursday, March 5, 2009, at the Legislature in Carson City, Nev. The march was in support of a proposal that would set nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure safety in hospitals. (AP Photo/Nevada Appeal, Cathleen Allison)**MAGS OUT, NO SALES**
About 150 nurses from across the state held a rally Thursday at the Nevada Legislature, urging lawmakers to support a proposal that would set nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure safety in hospitals.
The nurses also said they want the state Legislature to provide whistler-blower and advocacy protection for nurses who could be put in the position of standing up to doctors, insurers or hospital executives over patient care issues.
"We need to have the same staffing standard that they have in California," said Jill Furillo, director of National Nurses Organizing Committee-Nevada, adding that hospitals are cutting back on staffing but "the patients are still coming to hospitals, and they still need care. They need care more than ever."
The nurses want ratios that would range from one nurse to five patients in rehabilitation units to one nurse to two patients in intensive-care units and one-to-one ratios when a patient's condition warrants it.
The nurses also said they had heard of cases in which ratios ran as high as one nurse to 10 patient in medical-surgical units at hospitals, and that's too high.
The NNOC, started by the California Nurses Association in 2004, represents about 85,000 registered nurses in the United States.