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Statement of Cecilia F. Mulvey, PhD, RN
Member, Board of Directors
American Nurses Association
Press Conference
Reintroduction of Patient Safety Act
May 12, 1999
U.S. Capitol
Good morning. I'm Cecilia Mulvey, a registered nurse and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Nurses Association. On behalf of the American Nurses Association, I want to salute Senator Reid and Representative Hinchey for their leadership on behalf of American health care consumers.
I also want to recognize Representative Lois Capps, who is also a registered nurse. And I am so happy to see my fellow registered nurses and other supporters of the Patient Safety Act assembled here today.
Today is Florence Nightingale's birthday, the culmination of National Nurses Week. What better day for the ANA, as the professional association representing America's two-point-six million registered nurses, to speak out -- as Nightingale herself would have done -- on a very basic human right: the right to safe health care.
Nurses are, first and foremost, patient advocates. This is part of our professional responsibility and our tradition. Today, health care decisions are increasingly driven more by a quest for short-term cost savings and profit than by a commitment to safe, quality patient care.
The American Nurses Association took the lead on addressing this issue five years ago, as part of our "Every Patient Deserves A Nurse" campaign. A recent study by the federal Agency for Health Care Policy and Research validates the work we have done to establish "nursing quality indicators" and provides strong evidence of the link between adequate nurse staffing and good care. Despite this work, those with an eye on the bottom line still often fail to understand the relationship between good nursing care and cost-effective care.
This legislation would give consumers the basic information they need to make an informed choice of a hospital or nursing home for themselves or their loved ones. We take for granted that we can obtain this kind of basic information when we purchase a toaster or a car. There are sources available to tell us everything from a kitchen appliance's safety record to the gas mileage for a specific car model.
This is the Information Age. Americans are accustomed to considering a wide range of data from a wide range of sources when making choices. But where is the data about health care?
How strange and frightening this is. In today's health care environment, with its over-focus on cost, the simple truth is that no one is admitted to a hospital unless they require round-the-clock care by professional nurses. Yet even though a hospital stay by definition means you are most vulnerable, Americans are kept in the dark about much that we need and deserve to know.
When we think of Florence Nightingale, many of us think of a brave nurse carrying a lamp across a battlefield as she tends to the wounded. Indeed, the lamp has become the symbol of the nursing profession. With the Patient Safety Act, nurses are again shining a light -- the powerful light of knowledge.
This legislation lifts the veil of secrecy that keeps hospitals' staffing and outcomes a mystery to patients, gives consumers access to information they need to make informed decisions, and protects nurses who speak out on behalf of safe patient care.
Today, many registered nurses and other health care providers struggle valiantly to provide safe, quality care despite huge obstacles. They are asked to care for more and more patients who are more, and more acutely ill. They are required to work overtime and double shifts. And, they are told to keep quiet – in essence to abandon their professional obligation to advocate for their patients. Whether through intimidation, threats or actual firing, nurses continue to live in fear of retribution by their employers if they shine this light by informing the public about safety risks.
Silencing those who are closest to patients and most trusted by patients is wrong. The American people will not stand for it. Currently, legislation providing whistle blower protections for nurses has been passed in four states and similar legislation has been introduced in 18 other states. The Patient Safety Act calls for federal protection.
Make no mistake. Health care is big business. Mergers and acquisitions in health care continue with little regard to their impact on communities. Meanwhile, what happens to the most vulnerable patients and patient populations? What happens to our hospitals' historic mission of community health? The Patient Safety Act requires consideration of these factors as health care increasingly behaves like the big business it has become.
We hope that hospitals and other facilities will join ANA in championing this bill. There is not a single item in the Patient Safety Act that should be objectionable to a health care organization. The Act simply seeks to have these organizations tell us who is providing care, how patients fare under that care, and that health care practitioners will not be retaliated against for speaking up on behalf of safety.
Facilities that invest in good nursing care should welcome the opportunity to highlight that commitment in their communities.
I invite the health care "industry" to look out today on the human faces of their "customers," those who ultimately pay for health care services through their taxes and through their contributions to benefit plans and through their labor at their place of employment. I invite the big business of health care to put down its balance sheet, and to partner with us to give Americans the safe care we deserve, and to protect the professionals who have dedicated their lives to providing that care.
The American Nurses Association is the only full-service professional organization representing the nation’s 2.6 million Registered Nurses through its 53 constituent associations. ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
1999 press releases
