Washington State Nurses Association’s (WSNA) Director of Government Affairs Kathryn Weiss said that nurse staffing has been a problem for several years and that hospitals have already had to close down units due to lack of care personnel.
Weiss said that hospitals were generally looking to maintain the status quo, while their union wanted more substantial reform.
“We really wanted a drastic solution for this really drastic problem that we've been seeing in which nurses and healthcare workers have been burning out at extraordinary rates because they've been asked to take on more and more patients, more and more responsibility,” Weiss said.