RICHMOND — A proposal to require that a registered nurse with special skills be present in every surgical operating room was amended and then delayed Monday.
Del. Scott Garrett, R-Lynchburg, sponsored HB 1466 at the request of the Virginia Council of periOperative Registered Nurses. “I believe it is a patient-safety issue,” Garrett told a subcommittee of the House panel on Health, Welfare and Institutions.
The measure was delayed for a week while legislators and lobbyists add an exemption for emergencies and natural-disaster situations. Lawmakers amended the measure Monday to clarify its reference to ambulatory surgical centers.
Most surgical facilities already have the specially qualified nurses in their operating rooms, but some hospitals “in pockets of nursing shortages” might have a problem meeting that requirement all the time, said Paul Speidell, representing the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.
The nurses, called circulators, are “critically important to avoid errors” in operating rooms, said Garrett, a surgeon.
Garrett said their duties include making sure surgeries are performed on the correct part of a patient’s body, seeing that the kind of surgery being done is the procedure the patient needs, and ensuring that the right medications and blood supplies are available in the operating room.
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