Watch Out Texas Nurses!!! New bills affecting nursing may harm you

If you have not been tracking legislation that could affect your nursing practice, you need to do so NOW. The Board of Nursing has a great handout listing the various proposed bills. The bills that I have been watching closely are:

**HB 998, in support [this bill makes the current contested case procedure fair and is long overdue]

**SB 1880, against [see my explanation below]

Please take the time to educate yourself on the bills and contact your Senators and Representatives to tell them what you think about the bills. Too often the actual people that are going to be affected by the bills do not voice their opinion regarding the legislation.

I am very worried about various sections in SB 1880 and that the bill is trying to fix a few isolated problems with a mighty big hammer and that the resulting effect on nurses will be very sad. This bill came in the middle of my dear friend's illness and death, so I was not able to voice my opinion but I plan on doing so now. What bothers me is that when I looked at the witness list, I did not see any organizations or individuals that had experience with the day-to-day application of the incidents this bill proposes to affect. As I said, the bill on its face seems reasonable until you know about the actual application and the unfair, adverse effects the various sections will have on hard-working good nurses. I think it is crucial that our Legislators know about the effect various sections of this bill will have on nurses and ultimately the public because this bill will cause nurses to leave nursing, thereby increasing the nursing shortage.

Please contact your Legislators now or you will have to suffer the consequences of no action. I also want to point out that, unlike organizations with paid lobbyists, no one pays me to watch these bills or to take time to contact my Legislators or to sit at the Capitol for hours to testify; I do these things because I want to try to help nurses get the best possible laws in place that protect them and the public. And some of the proposed sections that I am fighting against or fighting for would actually take work away from attorneys, so there is no compensation there either. I am taking these stands because I believe that it is the right action to take.