Dear Neighbors,
I want to sincerely thank everyone who joined Rep. Jen Schultz, Sen. Jen McEwen and me for our recent Virtual Town Hall Meeting. We value having such engaged constituents who take time out of their weekend to connect with us about their priorities and how we can improve the lives of Minnesotans. Video of the Town Hall is available on Facebook, and we look forward to having another event soon!
Legislative Session Begins
The 2022 Legislative Session started on Monday. Despite our recovering economy and sizable budget surplus, too many Minnesotans are still facing significant struggles as they seek the economic security they deserve. This legislative session, I’m hopeful we can take a good look at the difficulties Minnesotans are facing and deliver resources to help address them including a lack of affordable health care, educational challenges, a vast child care shortage, increased costs in their day to day lives, and more. This legislative session gives us an enormous opportunity to solve some pretty big problems and in doing so, help people, families, and communities succeed and thrive.
To follow along with our work at the Capitol, House Public Information Services has a variety of resources including daily updates about legislative activity, streaming video of committee hearings and floor sessions, and other information about your state government.
Supporting Nurses at the Bedside
Nurses have chosen their line of work out of a remarkable spirit of caring for their fellow Minnesotans. Since COVID-19 first arrived, we’ve asked the world of nurses and other dedicated people in our caring professions. With increased numbers of patients entering our hospitals, including emergency rooms and ICUs, nurses have been pushed to their max. They are overworked, they are physically exhausted, and they are emotionally drained.
Nurses deserve more than just our thanks or hollow lip service that puts them on a pedestal as heroes, only to demand they continue working short-staffed with grueling hours and unacceptable patient-to-staff ratios, putting their ability to deliver quality care at risk. The nurse staffing crisis has existed long before the pandemic, but the pandemic has provided us valuable lessons about how the status quo isn’t working for nurses or the patients they serve, and has highlighted an added urgency toward addressing this problem.
That’s why I’m proud to author the Keep Nurses at the Bedside Act. The legislation will ensure every hospital has a core staffing plan developed by nurses and management, limits the number of patients per nurse, delivers resources to recruit and train more nurses, as well as resources to help support nurses at the bedside. Today I joined nurses and legislative colleagues to announce the proposal.
Protecting Front Line Workers
When COVID-19 emerged, lawmakers worked quickly on a bipartisan basis to enact a presumption that if health care workers, first responders, and other front line workers contract the virus, there is a presumption – for workers’ compensation purpose – they got sick while on the job. Unfortunately, this presumption lapsed at the end of 2021, leaving 183,000 frontline workers without the guarantee of compensation in the event they contract COVID-19.
This afternoon, the Minnesota House is set to consider legislation to extend this presumption into 2023. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not enough just to thank our health care heroes and other front line workers for their dedication. As they work to keep us healthy and safe, we also have the responsibility to ensure that if they become sick, they don’t have to fight an uphill battle to protect their economic security.
As always, I invite you to reach out to me with your input, ideas, or if I can ever be of assistance. It’s an honor to represent you.
Sincerely,
Liz Olson
State Representative