Shortage of nurses can be deadly

• A 2002 study by Harvard and Vanderbilt university researchers, examining millions of 1997 hospital cases, found preventable deaths and patient complication rates were up to nine times higher in hospitals where most of the care was given by licensed practical nurses and aides, not better-trained RNs.

• For each additional patient over four assigned to a nurse, the risk of dying after surgery rose 7 percent, according to a 2002 survey of 168 Pennsylvania hospitals by Linda Aiken, director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

"The fewer patients a nurse cares for, the better the outcome in general," says Aiken.

But nurses say their workload and paperwork do not leave enough time to comfort, educate or even thoroughly assess patients. Many of the most experienced nurses leave for easier jobs at drug or insurance companies, leaving ever-greener nurses at the bedside.

"You're just thrown in the deep end . . . too many patients, too many tasks," says RN Alison Goodman, whom Wesley Hospital fired 3 1/2 years ago after she repeatedly filed complaints about unsafe RN staffing levels and gave her reports to attorney Prochaska.

Hospital spokeswoman Helen Thomas says Goodman was fired for breaking patient-confidentiality rules.

In another Kansas hospital, busy young mother Karin Meade was left paralyzed from the neck down due to inadequate care by nurses swamped with too many patients, Prochaska claims. Meade and her husband, Peter, are suing Olathe Medical Center, where he took her on June 14, 2001, after a chiropractic treatment tore an artery lining.

That caused small blood clots; some broke free, causing several mini-strokes, according to Prochaska. He says nurses didn't notice because for 28 hours none did the neurological checks required every four hours to see if Karin Meade was coherent and able to move and feel her limbs. Despite nurses' notes in her chart about slurred speech and a severe headache — classic stroke signs — no one intervened.

Spokeswoman Kate Eller says Olathe Medical Center does not discuss pending lawsuits.

Peter Meade has moved his wife to a group home in Chandler, Ariz., outside Phoenix, near her parents. He visits her daily and is modifying the house he lives in so she can move in.

"She's still in the I-can't-believe-this-has-happened-to-me stage," he says.

Hospitals generally say they haven't hired more nurses because they are in short supply. They also blame financial pressures, such as technology costs and cuts in government and insurance reimbursements. Most oppose hard-and-fast limits on how many patients nurses may handle.

"Mandating a number doesn't make those nurses appear," says American Hospital Association spokeswoman Amy Lee. "We feel that is trying to force what needs to be flexible into a one-size-fits-all model."