nurse/patient ratio

Published

how many patients/residents for 1 nurse at your work place?

hospital?

rest homes?

rest home & hospital?

dementia unit?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

- In hospitals, 1:7.

- With 2 nurses, anything from 8-14 patients or more if med/surg gets busy.

- In a nursing home I once worked at, 1:65 patients, but had some carers helping out. However I had to do all the meds, BSLs, insulin, etc. Never went back there again.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

In Victoria in the acute sector in public hospitals 1:4 on am & pm shift with an incharge who does not have a pt load. On nights up to 1:7 with the incharge taking a pt load. Sub acute such as rehab and dementia units it is 1:6 on days and 1;10 on nights not sure about the charge nurse. Nursing homes are private so not sure what the deal is there or in the private hospitals.

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Specializes in mental health + aged care.

Not sure if you are asking for NZ or Oz, but the only legal minimum staffing requirement for aged care in NZ is minimum 1 RN 24/7 per site that has hospital level care. My work has 36 hospital beds and 21 rest home.

AM Hospital = 1 RN, 7 carers

AM rest home = 1 EN, 1 carer

PM Hospital = 1RN, 6 carers

PM rest home = 2 carers

Nocte Hospital = 1 RN, 2 carers

Nocte rest home = 1 carer

There can be some overlap with the staffing especially at night. The nocte rest home carer will often help with some of the hospital residents if we're really busy for some reason. This seems to be pretty standard for aged care and I have seen worse ratios

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the last place i worked for morning and afternoon shift it was:

10 patients, 1 senior RN, 1 grad/en and a student. It was a busy surgical ward and having to teach students, help grads and do stuff EN's cant do wore me out completely. I left nursing just over a month ago..am now looking for something less stressful in nursing. There was no grad support from staff development either and students preceptors from the universities never came. It was not unusal to have a shift where I would of done 90% of the work.

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In my new job in a major hospital on a 15 bed med/surg speciality ward the norm seems to be 3 RNs & 2 undergrad-AINs. 1 RN is team leader and might take a small patient load. The RNs and undergrads work in pairs (1 RN, 1 undergrad = pair) and team nurse about 8 patients.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Orthopaedics,.

In a private hospital in SA, at night, med/surg, 1 nurse:10-12 patients

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I work in a hospital in CA and 1 per 5 pts on a med surge floor. In tele floors it is 1/4

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In Vic, currently working in a private hospital and ratio is 1:5. But on the ward I am currently working on we team nurse, so 2 nurses will never have more than 10 patients between them. That is on AM and PM, night duty it's 1:7

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I work in a public hospital in SA, in ortho the ratio is 1:4 Early and Late shift.

At night it's 1:6, sometimes 1:7.

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I work on a med/surg floor in GA and average about 6 patients a shift.

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Very interesting all posts, does the ANF have patient - ratio agreements in Oz states I wonder, I have done night ratios private hospital surg, 1:10, as routine

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