#Bill would require minimum staffing in nursing homes, hospitals

New York’s nursing homes and hospitals would be required to maintain adequate minimum staffing levels under a proposed state law gaining steam in the wake of a damning report linking understaffed facilities to high levels of coronavirus deaths.

The push to pass the legislation has picked up since state Attorney General Letitia James released a bombshell report last week packed with shocking findings — among them that two-thirds of nursing home coronavirus fatalities in the state were in facilities with the lowest or next-to-lowest staffing ratings.

“The attorney general’s report validates what we’ve said all along: The nursing homes are understaffed,” state Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), the bill’s co-sponsor, told The Post.

The “Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act” — introduced earlier this month, prior to James’ report — would establish minimum standards for nurse-to-patient ratios under penalty of revocation of the facility’s operating license.

Under the law, one nurse could be assigned to no more than five acute-care patients in a nursing home, and facilities must have sufficient staffing to ensure every resident at least 2.8 hours of time with a certified nurse aide, 1.3 hours with a licensed practical nurse or registered nurse, and 0.75 hours with a RN.

The legislation also establishes minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for varying hospital wards, including a one-to-one ratio in operating rooms, trauma units and maternity wards for advanced stages of labor.

With respect to nursing homes, Kim observed that the facilities have long opposed staffing minimums because, as James’ report noted, 65 percent operate as for-profit entities.

“That’s why they lobby against staff ratio requirements. They have to spend money,” he said. “They’re trying to protect their bottom line.”

Michael Balboni, the executive director of the New York Greater Health Care Facilities Association, noted that similar legislative pushes have gone nowhere in the past because the state refused to cough up additional funding to facilities.

“The state will have to find a way to fund the minimum staffing program, which has always been a stumbling block in the past,” he said.

But a memo accompanying the legislation reviewed by The Post argues that raising the standard of care would pay for itself by reducing medical malpractice lawsuits and insurance costs.

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), who chairs the Senate health committee, credited James’ audit with shining light on the disastrous consequences of insufficient staffing in healthcare facilities.

“The Attorney General’s report highlights how inadequate staffing levels at nursing homes directly resulted in higher infection rates and deaths,” said Rivera, who is sponsoring the bill in his chamber of the state legislature. “This report will inform the policies and reforms that we must consider to improve patient and worker safety.”

Added Richard Mollot, executive director of the New York Long Term Community Care Coalition watchdog group, “The AG’s report confirms what we have long known: Though staffing is the most important indicator of a nursing home’s safety, due to lax enforcement, most facilities fail to maintain sufficient staffing.

“The safe staffing bill is critical to ensuring that nursing homes invest in the staffing they need to provide the care they promise to residents and their families,” added Mollot.

Also cheering the bill and attorney general’s report was Pat Kane, the executive director of the NYS Nurses’ Association.

“The AG’s Report validates measures we have been advocating for throughout the pandemic and gives insight into what was happening to nursing home patients sent to hospitals, to critical care units overflowing with COVID-19 patients,” she said. “There, as at nursing homes, unsafe staffing levels meant higher patient mortalities.

“The essential lesson is that you cannot mandate increased capacity without guaranteeing safe staffing. The Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act provides a proactive solution based upon important retrospective, peer-reviewed studies,” Kane added. “It would require each facility to implement individualized staffing plans that meet minimum requirements and are developed with input from frontline staff. The Act is the guarantee for all New Yorkers for safe, quality care and would bring to a system of care the equality so terribly lacking.”

The administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the legislation.

James’ report served as a blistering rebuke of the administration’s accounting of the coronavirus crisis with respect to nursing homes, finding that the death toll in the facilities may be more than 50 percent higher than officials claim.

Additional reporting by Aaron Feis