Nursing Shortage-what are YOUR opinions?

[Diuretic Junkie]

According to CAN, RNABC, WHO, Health Canada, and other sources, 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 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? I'd like to hear any responses, positive, negative, informative, venting -- anything goes, no offense taken.

Thanks! ~Diuretic Junkie~

[HemovacStew]

I'm a surgical nurse who is casual but I usually end up working the equivalent of full-time hours often with overtime. Our hospital is so short on nurses, both RNs and LPNs, that we are short for at least one shift every day. We are all tired and snippy by the end of the shift and I know our patient care suffers. We have less time to spend with them than we should.

Our nurse-physician relations within the hospital stink. many of the surgeons are older and act like they are superior to us. I know we would all be happier to be treated like members of a health care team instead of survants that do the surgeon's bidding.

I don't know about the politics behind this shortage but I agree with the part about making the workplace better. If we had a better environment I would think we could retain more nurses.

[ernurse2244]

I agree that nurse/doctor relations is a big downer for nurses. I don't know how many outside the field realizes that is going on, especially prospective nursing students. Maybe the ones who have had other jobs in the hospital, but I doubt that most have seen a nurse raked over the coals for a minor offense.

Another thing, I think, is more women are becoming doctors since that door has opened wide for women. Men are not joining the nursing profession at the same rate.

[Diuretic Junkie]

Thanks for responding! Here's another bit of trivia for you

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?

To read the page in question go to:

http://www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/bchealthcare/nurses.html

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

"....undesirable working conditions that drive nurses away (stress of overtime and heavy workloads, etc), and workplace abuse."

IMO, this is the one and only reason that there is supposedly a nursing "shortage".