The Nursing Shortage -- Your Opinions

[Diuretic Junkie]

According to several Canadian and US heathcare organizations, the nursing shortage has several causes, including: lack of funding for full-time positions and available seats for nursing students, undesirable working conditions that drive nurses away (stress of overtime and heavy workloads, etc), and workplace abuse. This shortage will be further exacerbated within the next decade as nearly half of the experienced nurses will retire.

Some suggested solutions for ways to correct this shortage include: more funding for schools of nursing, provision of more full-time positions, the option of part-time work for nurses with more seniority without losing benefits, strategies aimed at improving the workplace by having sufficient nurses, effective leadership, and opportunities to further education.

What I am interested in learning about is how registered nurses/nursing students/LPNs have experienced the nursing shortage and its effects in the workplace. Do you agree with these organizations’ opinions on the cause of the shortage and what can be done about it? What have your employers done to help attract nurses to work for them? What are your opinions, questions, or comments on the subject?

[Aaron C.]

well, at least we'll have job security!

I don't know what can be done, other than government incentives.

[Diuretic Junkie]

The BC government has a page
boasting what it says it is doing about the nursing shortage:

-provided nearly $60 million to recruit, train, and retain BC nurses
-created 1,813 spaces for students (an expected 6, 500 new graduated by 2006)
-provided $15 million for patient lifts and hospital beds to improve workplace conditions
-provided a 23% wage increase
-introduced forgivable BC student loans for graduates working in rural areas

Likely the provincial/state governments in many areas have made similar claims or provided similar funds. Has anyone noticed any positive results from these measures? If so, what benefits have you seen? What are your opinions, questions, comments?
http://www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/...re/nurses.html

[mercynurse]

OK you gave me the opportunity to get on my soapbox so here goes....!!!

I've been a nurse for a long time and one of the biggest problems I see is that organizations do everything to attract new nurses but nothing to retain the experienced nurses that they have. Many nurses job hop every few years as the next place will give them a bonus for coming to work for them but the place they work will not give them a retention bonus....even if they ask. I worked at a place 2 years ago that lost 4 experienced tele nurses for this very reason. Also one of the reasons I left. I asked for a 3% raise and was told I was at the top of the pay scale and they couldn;'t give it to me....so I was worth less for the next year as inflation is >3%!! What's wrong with this picture?!

Thanks for letting me vent!!

[Anonymous]

I agree with you wholeheartedly.. I left a great hemodialysis job in Maine making..$22/hr.. ONE MONTH to the day my former boss offered me 20% that's TWENTY PERCENT to come back...Where was the money when I was there.. At 3 months out she offered me 30% THIRTY PERCENT....They had the money all along..

The day I gave my notice she said to me " Many people have left to go to XYZ company and they came back"...Guess what I've been gone for 19 months. Now it's a principal thing. I got no respect. I don't work in conditions like that.. People come to hospitals and clinics for nursing care not doctoring, not for the comfy beds, or the food..That's called the Holiday Inn....

With all the opportunities for young people to have a rewarding career and feed their families, put their kids through college, and have funds for their retirement most are not looking to nursing. Not staff nursing anyway..

Ulturism (sp) doesn't put a roof over your head or food in your belly.. My son lives in the Baltimore area. We looked at condos in the area around Xmas time.. Nothing under 180K.. How can someone making $20/hour afford that. He graduted from HS , barely. Went into the USMC will do 9 years there. Special Intell .. He will get out next spring and already has a job lined up that will most probably touch 6 figures. I have a college education. BSN .. Work in a highly specialized area of nursing. I have been an RN for 7 years and an LPN of 17.. Total 24 years and won't come close to 6 figures this year or next ..Probably never.

Ok I am getting down....Pay me what I'm worth .. I'll stay.

WR,,, three commas for Becca

[UnholyFurball]

It's great for all these organizations to have figured out why there is a nursing shortage. Like it wasn't obvious before they stated it. I think when there is evidence of RNs responsible for as many as 12 patients in a shift, we become aware of a huge crisis on hand and can figure out why more people aren't racing to become nurses. How much did those organizations spend figuring out that there was a shortage?
To begin making a difference in the nursing arena, there first has to be major changes. Nurses are still not portrayed as the full sum of their roles and responsibilities. I'd love to see some of the government officials that say that nurses are payed enough spend a set of four shifts with a nurse and actually become totally aware of the extent of the duties. It's not all about the money, if it was, there would be NO nurses! Some acknowledgement would be nice. Secondly, I am from B.C. and am horribly disgusted with our main figure for the BCNU. At times I think of going to another province to work, so that I am not associated with her. During the strike talks when the government was talking about ALL the nurses getting a huge wage,the highest in all of Canada, did she say ANYTHING about the fact that 95% of nurses will never make the top wage bracket? And what about the patients? Decreasing the workload will retain nurses within this province and will be an encouraging point to future nursing students, not to mention a higher work satisfaction and lower burnout rate for nurses and increased patient safety. I don't think in my four years as an RN that I have ever had less than eight patients to care for in a shift. This is only going to get worse with increased cutbacks in health care.
It's sad to say, but I'm seriously looking below the border!

[Anonymous]

Personally I wouldn't get to excited about nursing in the USA..8 is a cake walk for many here.. Many would be envious..

I work in a chronic outpatient hemodialysis unit.. We dialyze 36 patients on MWF and 28 on TTHS.. That's 64 patients I am responsible for in a week. Yes, I know most of them quite well.. I have been here on a travel assignment since the end of Sept. Many days I am the only licensed person in the unit. Managers are so over worked with the finances of running the unit that they are not able to help. If it weren't for my patients being grateful I'd get out of nursing too...

The powers that be have to remember that they need nurses. When my son gets a 50 cent raise at Mikey D's and I get 30 cents that's an insult...And yes it is about the money.

Money says we are valuable too..

WR,,, three commas for Becca

Several studies have shown that each extra patient a nurse has reduces each of her patients chances of survival by something like 7%.. I'm not citing anything a good RN doesn't already know...

[Diuretic Junkie]

Thank you to those who responded. I would still love to hear more opinions from others, so feel free to add your two cents!

[JuliaS]

The nursing shortage here in Texas is outrageous! The hospital I work at does not do anything to retain the nurses they have, but will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring nurses in from India, Africa and all over. I agree that everyone has a right to work where they want. But why can't the hospital administrators work on retaining and training the nurses they already have on staff? I am working on my RN, but the hospital has eliminated the scholarship and student loan program, but bring in nurses from other countries, paying all their expenses, plus sign on bonuses. At the same time, the hospital has eliminated sign on bonuses for Texas nurses.
All during this, the patient/nurse ratio keeps climbing, and when anyone says anything about such a heavy load, we are told to "suck it up" since they are so short handed. Are we expected to put our licenses on the line because administration won't pay enough to retain nurses?
Thank you for allowing me to vent. This is my soapbox subject. It just seems ridiculous to me.

[nursinghumor]

I worked at Mercy Regional Medical Center in Laredo Texas when I first graduated Nursing School. It was common for use to have 6-10 patients on a busy med/surg/stepdown unit even seven years ago.

Depending on where you are in Texas, there simply are not enough nurses grown locally to fill the needs. Laredo was a border town bout a mile from the Rio Grande and my nurse manager told me it was notoriously difficult to find staff. Most of the nurses I worked with either grew up in the surrounding area or were contract staff on for a few years and also travelers.

Under those kinds of conditions, with that kind of turnover, it's very difficult to maintain a safe work environment much less quality of patient care.

A lot of nurses that do value their licenses would think twice before staying there. The problem is, "there" is quickly becoming "here" for most of us.

Not a good situation at all.

Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.4nursing.com