yes, you are right, there are laws in California that regulate how many patients a nurse can recieve on an assignment. An ICU nurse can only have two, stepdown 3, tele 4 or 5. I do not know about med surg. The current gov of california--arnold schwartzneggar attempted to change that law. The nurse and teachers union went against him so hard, he had to back down. I hear that he will not be re-elected because he has p.oed the nurses. California has strong nursing unions and they have worked hard for many years to get the concessions they have. Many states are not willing to put forth the effort or do not have strong unions. In Florida you can have 8 tele patients and more on med surg. The Florida nurses are very unhappy but wont allow unions in. I got sick of it and came to California. There is also a law in California that nurse patient ratios have to be maintained during lunch. So many hospitals have charge nurses and resource nurses without patients to relieve for breaks. Not all hospitals adhere to the law, but if they get reported, they do get into trouble. Hawaii went on strike a few years ago for 10 weeks and lost. The next contract term, they did not strike. I don't know what their new contract did for them. They went on strike because they were being forced to work overtime due to the shortage. After they lost their strike I guess they needed that extra money. It takes persistence and sacrafice.

Good for California. The key is that they have a union. We don't have any here & can't see getting any. Our med./surg. floors have as many as 8 patients on days & sometimes more on nights. We do primary nursing, & don't have a lot of aides. I work in L/D, we are staffed better.