SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Health care workers and advocates held a rally inside the Illinois State Capitol on Thursday to promote legislation aimed at enhancing the safety of hospital employees amid staffing shortages at some medical facilities.

“This is something that impacts the workers but then think about your loved ones when they are the patients, that they’re not getting the care that they need because there is no staff,” Kim Smith, a patient care technician for Northwestern Medicine, said through a loudspeaker that blared throughout the Capitol rotunda. “When I walk into a hospital and I’m given 36 patients and I’m the only tech on that floor, there’s no way I can deliver good care.”

A representative for Northwestern Medicine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many of the demonstrators sported purple and gold shirts representing the Services Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois, which organized the rally.

Legislators are considering at least two measures meant to improve working conditions in hospitals that have experienced lower-than-normal staffing levels in recent years, among them facilities that serve economically disadvantaged sections of the Chicago area and other parts of the state.

One bill would require hospitals to employ and schedule enough workers “to provide quality patient care and ensure patient safety.” Hospitals would have to annually publish staffing statistics to assess whether they’re at proper levels. The measure would also require the Illinois Department of Public Health to produce an annual report based on staffing disclosures.

The bill also would create a position of a “hospital safety advocate” within the department and codify that hospitals must conduct “ongoing verification” for each hospital worker employed in a given year to determine their competency.

Another bill would require hospitals to develop a written staffing plan and submit it to the Public Health Department. The department would also establish a “Nurse Staffing Advisory Board” under this legislation.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about being burdened because you’re doing jobs that you shouldn’t be doing, you’re doing jobs that two or three people should be doing and that you’re violating the training that you were given,” state Sen. Christopher Belt, a Democrat from Swansea, a sponsor of one of the bills, said at the rally.

State Sen. Lakesia Collins, a Chicago Democrat who has worked in the health care industry, talked about how hard staffing shortages can be on workers.

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