This bill simply aims to set safe limits on working hours by prohibiting hospitals from ordering nurses to work more than 12 consecutive hours except in special circumstances, and it requires that nurses be offered at least 8 hours off after a 12-or-more hour shift to rest, unless the nurse voluntarily agrees to waive this time. The bill has reasonable guardrails in the case of a mass casualty event or health emergency, or if the nurse is in the middle of a patient procedure that extends beyond their shift. We recognize that some nurses might want to volunteer to work additional hours if, in their judgement, they are able to provide safe care.
There is wide support for this bill and bipartisan co-sponsorship because we all understand the consequences of the problem. The Michigan Nurses Association worked closely with the Michigan Health and Hospital Association to incorporate a number of reasonable changes into this bill over the past few months to make sure that it is as feasible and reasonable as possible. These bills are a fair, commonsense solution that will go a long way toward keeping more people safe from harm and keeping more nurses in the profession here in Michigan. I am proud of the Senate for taking bipartisan action today in support of nurses and patient safety.
Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
Mr. President, when I first started in the House—yes, this will be a bit of an historic reminisce; I’m an old man here—then-Representative Switalski came to me and talked to me about these bills. I didn’t know much about it and said I’d consider it, but really didn’t think much of the idea, quite honestly. Representative Switalski talked to me about the bills, I didn’t think it would be an idea I’d be getting behind, but then back in my district, a group of nurses from the Iron Mountain hospital asked for a meeting with me. I went and met with them. We sat in a local community room at our credit union, and they chatted with me about the realities of providing health care. What I heard, and what was like a lightbulb moment for me, was coming to understand that the frustrations I had experienced as a patient in hospitals, the frustrations I experienced as a family member going to visit or bring home a loved one from the hospital, were so tied to the difficulties that our nurses face, the difficulties they face in their hours of work, the ratios of nurses to patients, and the expectations that we put on them. This was the common experience I think so many other people feel because it’s the complaint people always have. Why does it take so long to get out? Why does it take so long to get my loved one discharged? Why does it take so long to have somebody answer the call button or bring me a glass of water? As I started digging into this issue, I really began to see that I could not do anything other than support this and champion this cause.
We will hear people today invariably tell us, This is going to lead to a shortage of nurses, but the facts are that we already face a shortage of nurses under the current status quo. The status quo is, in my opinion, largely responsible for that shortage as we ask of our nurses to do things and to work hours that are not conducive to longevity and not conducive to staying here to do this job in Michigan. We see hospitals regularly employ travel nurses, oftentimes paid far more than the regular staff, just giving us further evidence of how hospitals are trying to solve their problem without actually addressing the realities of their own, of how they’re creating the very environment that’s leading to the shortage.
Mr. President, as I’ve done this job now for going on 16 years that I’ve been here in Lansing, I’ve oftentimes heard, especially my side, talk about the way things ought to be and the way they ought to work in a free marketplace. It always sounds really good and I’m totally a supporter of seeing the free market work, but we need guardrails because just like a school superintendent ought to do what’s best for their teachers because that leads to the best outcomes, school superintendents sometimes have personal agendas. Sometimes their agenda doesn’t align or they have a long game planned to see certain employees leave or certain changes made in order to make the school more like what they want it rather than get the best results as quickly as possible. I believe we see that same thing often play out with our hospitals. Yes, they want to have good results. Yes, they want to have success. But they also have money issues to deal with. They also have other programming decisions to make. The expense, then, is lost and we see a workplace created that’s hard on our nurses in a very unjust way, that keeps them from their family time, it keeps them from getting the rest they need in order to provide the safest level of care. It’s not out of line for our state to set guardrails to make sure we have the best outcomes for patients and our communities. We do this for truck drivers, we do it for air traffic controllers, we do it for airplane pilots, and we need to be doing it for our corrections officers.
Today, we have a chance to do it for our nurses, which is really doing it for our communities, for our loved ones, and even for ourselves who end up in a hospital . I ask for a “yes” vote.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 297, entitled
A bill to amend 1978 PA 368, entitled “Public health code,” by amending section 20165 (MCL 333.20165), as amended by 2024 PA 250, and by adding section 17233.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor , as follows: