Have you or a family member ever suffered from a pressure ulcer while hospitalized?
In addition to being painful, such bedsores can become so deep that they damage muscles, bones, tendons and joints. Yet they are almost always preventable when proper staffing levels are adhered to.
The recent release of Minnesota's Eighth Annual Adverse Events Report noted that incidents involving pressure ulcers spiked more than 19 percent statewide in 2011.
What state hospital executives didn't mention in spinning away that alarming statistic was that numerous national studies have shown a direct correlation between inadequate nurse staffing levels and an increase in conditions, including pressure ulcers, pneumonia, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, shock/cardiac arrest, urinary tract infections and more.
While many will remember that the Twin Cities nurses' strike during the summer of 2010 shined a white-hot spotlight on the issue, unsafe staffing has been a problem in Minnesota for decades.
Keep in mind that during the great recession of 2009, Twin Cities hospitals had their largest profit margins (6.5 percent) in a decade. It's not that hospital executives can't pay to adequately staff their hospitals.
They just don't want to.
LINDA HAMILTON; PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA NURSES ASSOCIATION
