Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Massachusetts Question 1, Patient Limits for Nurses

Massachusetts would have been the second state with nurse-to-patient ratio requirements.

Voters in Massachusetts handily struck down a limit on the number of patients that hospital nurses can help at one time. With just 14 percent of precincts reporting, the measure was defeated 70 percent to 30 percent, according to The Boston Globe. It would have been only the second state in the country with nurse-to-patient ratio requirements.

Question 1 would have created legal ratios based on the type of patients that nurses are dealing with. Nurses aiding women during birth and up to two hours after, for instance, would have been limited to one patient. If they were working with children, they could have seen four patients at once. In the psychiatric ward, nurses could have helped up to five patients.

More