Victory! Nurse Efforts Stop Dangerous SB 1111

Second bad bill stopped so far in 2010

SB 1111, a dangerous bill that was a misguided “reform” effort to deal with the problems of the BRN (Board of Registered Nursing) was defeated in Sacramento. SB 1111, which failed in the Senate Business and Professions Committee, proposed changing the system of investigating nurses accused of wrongdoing to more of a “guilty until proven innocent” format that suffered from a lack of due process for health professionals.

Our SEIU Nurse Alliance of California is committed to safe patient care and believes the BRN needs to be improved, but efforts such as SB 1111 are clearly not the way to do it. SEIU had been working in good faith with author Sen. Negrete McLeod and her staff to amend the bill to meet the objective of providing safe patient care while not exposing nurses and other health professionals to unsubstantiated allegations by employers. After our efforts failed to produce the results we wanted, we and other nurse organizations pushed for the bill to fail.

This was the second bad bill we have helped stop this year. SEIU nurses also had serious problems with AB 2194, which would have allowed for hospitals to have mixed patient acuity units which could undermine the level of care delivered and required, and could have negatively affected patient safety. Our efforts got AB 2194 pulled by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher in April.