Long-term care providers in Ohio appear to be left out of a newly introduced bill aimed at retaining nurses in the Buckeye State and alleviating some of the final burdens associated with earning a degree in nursing.
State legislators introduced the bipartisan “The Workforce and Safe Patient Care Act” on Wednesday, and although one of the bill’s sponsors mentioned “elderly homes” at a press conference, the bill language is limited to hospitals, the Ohio Nurses Association told the McKnight’s Business Daily.
“There is a serious shortage of nurses and nursing assistants, along with other professionals, in long-term services and supports. The portion of House Bill 285 that creates a nursing loan forgiveness program after five years of work in healthcare does include SNFs and assisted living communities as qualifying worksites,” said Pete Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association. “Most of the bill, however, is devoted to extensive requirements on hospital staffing. We are pleased with the loan forgiveness program, but concerned that the staffing requirements could jeopardize passage of the legislation.”
State Reps. Haraz N. Ghanbari (R) and Elgin Rogers Jr. (D) introduced the legislation during a press conference at the statehouse, where Rogers noted that “even before the pandemic, our hospitals and elderly homes were already understaffed … and things have gotten worse.”
The bill, if it becomes law as written, would set aside $20 million for a loan-to-grant program. Students would take out a loan to cover the cost of education, and the loan would become a grant if the student worked as a nurse in Ohio for five years after graduating.
“According to the governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, registered nurses remain among the most in-demand professionals in our state. Additionally, studies have shown that for every additional patient a nurse takes on, fatality rates increase by 7%,” Ghanbari said in a press release. “This bipartisan legislation is about supporting safety and our workforce.”
The bill also would establish staffing standards for Ohio’s hospitals, preserve nurse staffing committees in hospitals and give them “meaningful representation in setting those safe workplace staffing levels,” Ghanbari said during the press conference.
“We believe that those involved in the frontline of patient care should have a voice in determining those staffing ratios,” he added.
The bill allows for the possibility of extraordinary circumstances that might necessitate deviations from those ratios.
