Minnesota Senate committee advances bill requiring nurse-to-patient ratios amid debate over access and enforcement

Senate File 2775, a proposal to set legally binding nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in Minnesota hospitals, advanced from the Senate Committee on Labor after a March 27 hearing and a voice vote to send the bill to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

The bill’s lead author, Senator Port, presented the measure as a response to long‑running staffing shortages and patient‑safety concerns raised by bedside nurses. “Nurses and patients need safe, legally binding nurse to patient ratios in hospitals,” Shannon Cunningham, director of governmental and community relations for the Minnesota Nurses Association, told the committee.

Supporters said the bill would require hospitals to adopt staffing plans based on nationally recognized measures of patient acuity and nursing intensity; to set maximum patient assignments for RNs and direct care staff on each unit; and to prohibit retaliation against workers who report unsafe assignments. The bill text discussed by testimony includes specific assignment limits such as 1:1 care in operating rooms, trauma units, active labor and patients in immediate jeopardy; 1:2 in critical care and neonatal intensive care; 1:3 in newborn nurseries, postpartum couplet units, pediatric units and emergency departments; 1:4 in acute psychiatric and chemical dependency units; and 1:5 in skilled nursing settings. It would also…