Resources
Take action
Five minutes is enough. Find your rep, copy a template, personalize the brackets, and send it.
Step one
Find your representative
Step two
Copy a template, personalize it, send it
Swap out anything in [brackets], then paste it into an email or a printed letter.
For US legislators
Built around the federal staffing bill, but works for state-level ratio bills too.
Dear [Representative/Senator Name],
I'm writing as a nurse (or nursing student) in [State] to ask you to support the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (H.R. 3415 / S. 1709), and any safe-staffing legislation before you this session.
Understaffing isn't an abstract line item for the people providing your constituents' care — it's why nurses are leaving the bedside faster than nursing schools can replace them, and it's linked to measurable harm: more medication errors, more falls, more infections.
California and Oregon have already shown that mandated ratios are workable. I'm asking you to help make [State] the next state that takes patient safety, and nurse retention, seriously.
Thank you for your time and your service.
[Your name]
[Your city]
For Canadian MPs and MPPs
Points to Manitoba's ratio law as proof it's possible.
Dear [MP/MPP Name],
I'm writing as a nurse (or nursing student) in [Riding] to ask you to support legislated nurse-to-patient ratios, following Manitoba's lead as the first province to act.
Nurses in [Province] are leaving faster than they can be replaced, and the research is clear that unsafe staffing levels put patients at risk. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions' National Council on Nurse-Patient Ratios has already laid the groundwork — what's missing in [Province] is the political will to act on it.
I'm asking you to raise this in [Parliament/the Legislature] and to support real funding for safe staffing.
Thank you for your time and your service to our community.
[Your name]
[Your riding]
Step three
Follow the organizations already doing this work
Ontario Nurses' Association
Ontario's nursing union, active on Bill 124 repeal and staffing advocacy.
RNAO
Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario — policy, practice guidelines, and advocacy.
Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
The national body coordinating the push for legislated ratios across provinces.