NJ patients and nurses need protection. Pass safe staffing | Opinion

I’ve walked hospital hallways at midnight and stood beside patients in their most vulnerable moments. I’ve witnessed the crushing weight my fellow nurses carry — often responsible for more lives than is safe or humane. As someone with more than 20 years of hospital experience, I am telling you plainly: New Jersey is in a health care crisis. It is time to pass A3450 and S1941, our state’s long-overdue safe staffing legislation.

These bills would establish enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals and health care facilities. At their core, they do what should be common sense — they protect patients by ensuring there are enough nurses on the floor to care for them. They support health care workers by giving them a fighting chance to do their jobs safely and ethically. And they address the root causes of burnout and high turnover that are gutting our hospitals.

Let me be clear: This isn’t just about nurses — it’s about you. Your child in the ER. Your elderly parent recovering from surgery. Your neighbor being treated for cancer. Every New Jersey resident who walks into a hospital deserves to know there are enough skilled professionals on staff to provide safe, timely care. Right now, that’s not guaranteed. It depends on your ZIP code, your hospital and your luck.

California passed nurse-to-patient ratios over 20 years ago. The results? Lower patient mortality rates, fewer hospital-acquired infections, shorter hospital stays and improved nurse retention. Oregon recently followed suit with HB 2697, requiring hospitals to adopt nurse staffing plans and enforce ratios in key departments. Yet here in New Jersey, despite overwhelming evidence and grassroots support, we remain behind — blocked by industry lobbyists who put profits over people.

Hospital executives claim they need “flexibility” to manage staffing. But what that really means is they want to keep the ability to assign one nurse six or seven patients at a time, a practice proven to increase medical errors, nurse burnout and patient harm. They argue that mandates are too expensive — ignoring the billions spent on travel nurses, malpractice lawsuits and avoidable complications caused by unsafe care.

Meanwhile, the people actually providing the care are sounding the alarm. When more than 1,700 nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital went on strike last year, they did it for one reason: safe staffing. After nearly five months on the picket line, they won a contract that imposed penalties on the hospital if it fails to meet staffing levels. But why should nurses have to strike for basic safety? Why should any hospital be allowed to let conditions get that bad?

A3450 and S1941 would change that. These bills would enshrine staffing ratios in state law, making them enforceable across all hospitals — not just those where unions have bargaining power. This is critical, because more than half of New Jersey’s hospitals are non-unionized, leaving their staff members vulnerable to the whims of management. A statewide standard ensures fairness, consistency and, most importantly, safety for everyone.

This is not a partisan issue. It’s a human one. Nurses from every background and every community are united in this demand. Patients and their families want it. The science backs it. And yet the bills remain stalled in committee, victims of backroom lobbying and legislative inertia.

As a candidate for state Assembly in Legislative District 38, I’m not here to check boxes or play political games. I’m running because I’ve lived this crisis. I’ve been the nurse watching over four ICU patients because no one else was available. I’ve seen the trauma that short staffing inflicts — not just on patients, but on the nurses who go home haunted by what they couldn’t do.

When I get to Trenton, I won’t be guessing at what needs to change — I’ll be carrying two decades of frontline experience with me. I’ll be a legislator who speaks the language of health care, who knows what a code blue feels like, who understands that behind every staffing “ratio” is a human being who deserves to live.

We cannot wait another 21 years. The staffing crisis is now. The moral obligation is now. And the legislative opportunity is now. It’s time for New Jersey to follow the evidence, honor our health care workers and do what’s right for our residents.

Pass A3450 and S1941. Because your life — and mine — may one day depend on it.

Damali Robinson is a nurse anesthesiologist, a U.S. Army veteran and a candidate for the New Jersey state Assembly in the 38th Legislative District.