Legislation by a state lawmaker who represents Culver City that would grant registered nurses additional leeway in dispensing medication was signed into law Sept. 22 by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Assembly Bill 2348, authored by Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City) authorizes a registered nurse to dispense drugs or devices upon an order issued by a certified nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant if the nurse is functioning within a specified clinic.
AB 2348 would also authorize a registered nurse to dispense hormonal contraceptives pursuant to specified standardized procedures, if the nurse is functioning within a specified clinic.
“Conservative activists decided to target women’s reproductive rights as an easy ‘take down’ this year,” said Mitchell said earlier this year after her bill cleared the state Senate. “We have to make it clear that the pill isn’t going back in the bottle — and women aren’t going backward, period, no matter who the right enlists as allies.”
Under existing law called the Nursing Practice Act, a registered nurse can to dispense drugs or devices upon an order by a licensed physician and surgeon
AB 2348 was one of many that made the cut in last month’s legislative session.
The bill faced opposition from the powerful California Nurses Association. The organization’s executive director, Bonnie Castillo, said her group thought it could work out a compromise on Senate Bill 1338, called the Safe and Early Access bill. Sponsored by state Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), SB 1338 by would allows healthcare professionals, including nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform early abortions.
But not with AB2348.
“It’s a really dangerous bill for nurses and patients,” Castillo asserted. “It would allow registered nurses to practice outside the scope of their expertise.”
Mitchell, the chair of the Assembly’s Subcommittee on Health and Services, took issue with the union’s opposition to her bill.
“The bitter irony here is that those who have least access to regular physician care and will therefore most benefit from access to birth control dispensed by (registered nurses) are often poor women and women of color,” the assemblywoman noted in July. “Who should better understand their need than nurses?
“Yet a faction within that profession has joined with conservative legislators to limit rather than expand their health care options. It’s a shame!”
Mitchell did not return calls for comment on her bill being signed into law. AB 2348 will go into effect Jan. 1, 2013.