BRIGHTON, Minn. – The sponsor of a House bill to assure adequate hospital nursing care, Sandra Feist, said an ultimatum from Mayo Clinic to kill the bill was unexpected. “I was surprised,” Feist said. “I had been working diligently with Mayo for many weeks to identify language that would address their concerns without gutting the bill.” Feist said there have been months of debate and negotiations with hospital leaders and more than a dozen significant changes. The bill, called Keeping Nurses at the Bedside, aims for nurses and hospital staffs to establish workload standards. The standards would apply to hospital preparedness and to incident response rates. The in-house hospital committees also would establish eligibility for nursing scholarships, for education loan forgiveness, and for mental health programs for health care workers.
Feist. A second term House member elected from north Minneapolis area. A lawyer. A Democrat.