WSNA in Olympia: Legislative Session Week 3

In this week’s update:

• Staffing & Rest Breaks/Mandatory Overtime Bills Introduced
• Secure Medicine Return Hearing
• WSNA Member Debt Survey – Thank You!
• Student Loan Bills
• Nurse Legislative Day
• Upcoming Events

WSNA’s 2017 Legislative Priorities and issue-based one-pagers can be found here.

This week, bills were introduced on Staffing (HB 1714) and Rest Breaks/Mandatory Overtime (HB 1715). WSNA is preparing to testify on these bills in a couple of weeks. With the current climate of the legislature, our goal is to continue to highlight these important issues and how they affect nurses and patients

Read more about the Staffing bill and Rest Breaks/Mandatory Overtime bill.

Thank you to WSNA member Jeremy King for providing written testimony to the House Health Care Committee on HB 1047. This bill would create a statewide Secure Medicine Return program. Jeremy’s testimony included his experience with a patient bringing a bag of unused medications to the hospital following the death of a family member – but hospitals are not able to accept unwanted medications without a DEA-authorized drop box.

Several years ago, WSNA championed legislation that was ultimately passed in King County that required the pharmaceutical industry to develop and fund a Secure Medicine Return program to allow county residents to safely and securely dispose of unused medicines. King County is now implementing that program with 70 DEA-authorized drop boxes at pharmacies in drug stores, grocery stores, clinics, and hospitals. The program also offers pre-paid return mailers for homebound or disabled residents. Additionally, 17 local law enforcement offices around the county will host secure drop boxes.

WSNA supports the creation of a similar, statewide program to give all Washington residents a simple way to safely and securely dispose of old or unwanted medicines.

Thank you to everyone who completed the Debt Survey! We had more than 850 responses and will be working to include some of the survey results in our materials.

A quick glance through our Member Debt Survey results shows that WSNA members, like most professionals, carry a good amount of student loan debt. In fact, the average Washington resident with student loan debt has a debt load on average of $24,000.

This session, several consumer protection bills have been introduced to create more transparency around educational loans, to provide student loan debt counselors, and to repeal statutes regarding professional license or certificate suspensions.

That last bit pertains to nursing licenses: In 1996, legislation was enacted that allows an agency or board in charge of a professional license to suspend a borrower’s license who defaults on a federal or state-guaranteed educational loan. It applies to many professional licenses, including nurses. WSNA is supporting the repeal of these provisions – because taking away someone’s professional license and ability to practice their profession is counterproductive to loan repayment!

This week, WSNA signed-in in support of:

• SB 5022 - Providing information to students about education loans.
• HB 1169 - Enacting the student opportunity, assistance, and relief act.

The Governor will be at Nurse Legislative Day. Will you?

Nurses are the most trusted profession – making you fantastic advocates for your patients and your profession. Please join WSNA – and approximately 600 of your colleagues – in Olympia on February 13th. You can register here.

The day will begin with an opportunity to learn about WSNA’s 2017 Legislative Priorities. Then we are excited to welcome Governor Inslee as our Keynote Speaker.

After the Governor speaks, you will have time to meet with your group to plan out your afternoon hill visits (WSNA will have already made all the appointments for you!). Then we’ll head up to the Capitol for lunch and afternoon meetings with legislators.

We hope you will join us and make your voice heard!

February 11th
TV Town Halls on Public Health
Airing at 8:30 p.m. on KOMO-TV and KUNS (Spanish language).
Featuring:

• Secretary of Health John Wiesman
• Patty Hayes, RN, MN, Director of Public Health – Seattle & King County
• Dr. Ben Danielson

February 13th
Nurse Legislative Day