Demand safe RN staffing at acute psychiatric hospitals!

Right now, California is the only state in the country to enact an enforceable RN-to-patient staffing law in every unit, at all times, in every acute care hospital. That includes acute psychiatric hospitals, too — and nurses know these safe ratios are the bare minimum to protect our patients and set a higher standard of care, no matter the type of facility.

But newly drafted ratios for acute psychiatric hospitals (APHs) are threatening these important protections — and would put California nurses and some of our most vulnerable patients at risk. We can't let it happen!

We must speak up to protect safe staffing ratios in California at ALL facilities, for ALL of our patients. Please use the form below to send a message to Secretary of the California Health & Human Services Agency Kim Johnson and demand safe registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios at acute psychiatric hospitals!

Make your voice heard

Dear Secretary Johnson,

Hospitalized patients deserve the same standard of care no matter what kind of facility they are in, but the California Department of Public Health is proposing an inferior staffing standard for acute psychiatric hospitals compared to general acute care hospitals. This is unacceptable.

I am writing to urge CalHHS and CDPH to correct their proposal for APH staffing and to establish real, meaningful registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios that are the same as the safe staffing protections for patients in general acute care hospitals. All patients deserve the same high-standard of patient care.

Currently in general hospitals, only registered nurses count toward staffing ratios, and pediatric units must be staffed at or better than one nurse for every four children. Instead of using the same standard in APH facilities, the state is proposing that up to half the personnel used to count staffing might not be RNs, and that there only needs to be one nurse for every FIVE children. Under the proposal, RNs could be responsible for up to 24 patients per 12-hour shift or 16 patients per 8-hour shift. Because only registered nurses can assume legal responsibility for the comprehensive assessment and care plan of patients, this puts an undue burden on nurses in acute psychiatric hospitals, undermines our ability to care for our patients, and ultimately makes the proposed APH staffing ratios meaningless. In addition to proposing a lesser standard, the state has also omitted important language in these proposed regulations that already exist for RN ratios in general hospitals. This will create dangerous loopholes for employers to use to evade safe staffing.

With threats to health care access and funding for our most vulnerable patients looming this year, we should be expanding protections for our patients in every facility across the state, not walking them back. But with these new and inferior staffing standards, the state is failing us. This proposal will make the situation worse in our acute psychiatric hospitals and result in severe harm to patients. Even worse, CDPH’s proposal increases the personal and professional risks for nurses, puts patient safety at risk, and threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the decades-long protections for all RN staffing ratios.

I urge the California Health and Human Services Agency and the California Department of Public Health to maintain safe staffing ratios at APH facilities at the levels of general acute care hospitals and continue fulfilling the original requirements of the law that California Nurses Association nurses fought for more than a decade to win.

CalHHS and CDPH have the opportunity to correct its proposal and get safe staffing standards in our acute psychiatric hospitals right.

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