House Bill 50 has been transmitted to Gov. Parnell for his signature. This bill will require that the nurse taking care of you or your family member is adequately rested and therefore able to detect subtle changes in a patient's condition, to make correct judgments and take the necessary actions needed for safe and effective patient care.

This may save your life or the life of someone you love.

Nurses who are adequately rested and not subjected to excessive work hours are also less likely to suffer an injury on the job. This bill is about patient safety and nurse safety; it impacts the lives of both patients and nurses. Nursing is a physically and emotionally demanding profession that has a high rate of burnout and an increasing number of nurses leaving the workforce. There are many reasons why this happens, but excessive working hours and forced overtime as cost-saving staffing measures are some of the reasons given in a survey conducted by the American Nurses Association.

This bill is a part of a national legislative effort for "The Safe Nursing Care and Patient Act." House Bill 50 was sponsored by Rep. Peggy Wilson, 20 co-sponsors and nine cross-sponsors in the Senate. This bill passed the Legislature with near-unanimous support.

HB 50 promotes patient safety and limits excessive work hours for nurses in a health care facility. A health care facility cannot force a nurse to work beyond certain prescribed periods of time, or to accept an assignment of overtime if the overtime would jeopardize patient or employee safety. Nurses cannot work more than 14 consecutive hours without 10 hours of rest. Exceptions are allowed for unforeseen emergencies, school nurses, medevac flights, on-call situations, and to complete medical procedures or surgeries. HB 50 allows other exceptions for federal, tribal and rural facilities, and certain other circumstances.

Nurses from across the state have worked tirelessly for six years to get this legislation passed. Nurses stepped out of their comfort zone, risked intimidation and retaliation to testify and to write letters to the Legislature on the number of excessive hours that they were working. The Alaska Nurses Association supported this bill and has been very active in promoting its passage.

As executive director of the Alaska Nurses Association and a registered nurse, many times I have listened to nurses report their experiences with feeling about being forced to work far beyond their capacity, i.e. too many consecutive hours and too many excessively long shifts, without adequate rest to safely care for patients. Most nurses will never complain to a patient about the excessive hours they work. Their professional commitment is to advocate and care for the patient's health and safety. They even put themselves at risk to care for and protect a patient. Nurses want to be able to give their best to patients.

When nurses work 14 or more consecutive hours, how many hours have they been awake? If you are working more than a 14-hour shift and returning to work the next day, how much rest do you really get? The nurse must still travel to and from work, do errands and household chores, and usually take care of a family. Will they be alert enough for the next shift to make the critical decisions patients need and deserve from their nurse? Laws exist to limit working hours for airline pilots, marine captains, underground miners, railroad engineers and truck drivers. What is it about nurses that makes employers and the public think they are superhuman? These questions need to be answered.

It is my job to advocate for nurses' health and safety and promote safer patient care. Please contact Gov. Parnell and urge him to sign House Bill 50 as soon as possible to protect the safety of all Alaskans.