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Friends and Neighbors,
On Tuesday evening, I testified in support of my bill, HB 2697, which would address several key issues at the root of Oregon's health care staffing crisis. Below, you'll find more information about the bill and a recap of the hearing, the video to my testimony, and how you can submit testimony in support of the bill ahead of this evening's deadline.
What Is HB 2697?
House Bill 2697, if passed and enacted, would address some of the key workplace concerns of nurses and allied healthcare workers in Oregon. As we have seen time and again in the last three years, health care workers are overworked, understaffed, and not adequately supported.
HB 2697 addresses four areas of concern:
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Expansion: Oregon's current nurse staffing law only protects Registered Nurses (RNs) in hospital settings, while allied health care workers are also facing challenges due to understaffing. HB 2697 would include allied health care workers, such as call center nurses, technicians, occupational and physical therapists, CNAs, and respiratory therapists.
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Enforcement: The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) continues to decline to enforce the current staffing law. HB 2697 would require OHA to enforce the staffing law and replace the "mediation and impasse" procedure in the current law with arbitration. It would also give health care workers and their unions the right to file civil lawsuits over violations of the staffing plan. Higher monetary penalties would be levied by OHA against hospitals until compliance is reached.
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Breaks: Our health care workers are chronically having to miss meal and rest breaks. HB 2697 would mandate that the number of missed meal and rest breaks be added to the list of factors that staffing committees have to account for in their annual staffing plan reviews. This would ensure that staffing levels are sufficient to allow nurses to take their meal and rest breaks, which are not only required by law, but are essential for nurse well-being and patient safety.
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Adequate Staffing: Health care systems are not adequately staffed. We know this. HB 2697 would mandate minimum numerical staffing standards for staffing plans that are specific to the patient number of the unit. (Think of this like the student-to-teacher ratio schools try to abide by.) HB 2697 would require essential staffing ratios, tied to the patient population in the uint, to be part of all staffing plans and those staffing standards would be established in the law. Patient assignments for health care workers would not be able to exceed staff-patient ratios for any shift. Significant fines would be levied against a facility if they do not comply with these minimum staffing standards.
My Testimony
The public hearing for HB 2697 was packed on Tuesday evening. The hearing room next door had to be used to accommodate the overflow of people in attendance!
You can watch my testimony by clicking on the photo below. During my speech, I discussed the crisis our health care staff are facing and why this bill is necessary.
Hearing Highlights
After I delivered my testimony regarding HB 2697, the Committee heard from a multitude of health care workers in support of the bill. The hearing was incredibly moving and powerful.
Nurses shared their devastating stories of losing patients on their watch while overworked and understaffed. Physical therapists spoke about having to perform the duties of a recovery room nurse because there were no staff available. Call center nurses spoke of losing a patient in crisis to suicide while on the phone, and then not being allowed to step away to process the grief and shock because more calls were waiting in the queue.
Nurses shared the trauma of physical and sexual assault while on duty and being forced to continue working moments later due to staffing shortage. Technicians talked about the long wait times for patients needing critical treatment, while being asked to perform services outside their scope of practice.
It was heartrending to hear all of our health care workers share the grief, the tragedy, the shock, the PTSD, the mental health concerns that they have all experienced due to the lack of support in the workplace. I am so grateful to each and every one of them for their bravery as they testified openly about the conditions at their current place of work. Thank you, all of you, for helping elevate how critical this issue is and why HB 2697 is so needed.
Submit Testimony
If you or someone you know have been impacted by the health care workforce crisis, you can submit testimony relating to HB 2697. The deadline to submit written testimony through the bill's OLIS page is 5pm this evening (Thursday, March 2nd).
To submit written testimony, go to the bill's OLIS page. Click on "Submit Testimony" near the top of the page. You'll be prompted to enter your first and last name, a valid email address, and what organization you belong to or work with. You'll also be asked to select if your testimony is in favor of, opposed to, or neutral about the bill. You can upload a PDF of your testimony or copy the text into the window.
Written testimony is an important part of the bill-making process, as it lets us in the legislature know what our constituents are thinking and feeling about a proposed bill.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can always reach out to my office.
 Travis Nelson
State Representative
House District 44
Capitol Phone: 503-986-1444
Capitol Address: 900 Court St. NE, H-275, Salem, Oregon 97301
Email: Rep.TravisNelson@oregonlegislature.gov
Website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/nelson
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