what is the usual nurse patient ratio in tertiary hospital?

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I am starting my career as a registered nurse here in the philippines. I have been wanting to enter a tertiary institution.

I am currently on my volunteer-ship and i observed that here the staff handles a lot of patients. The practice of my current hospital is they have only 1 staff per area per shift. The icu sometimes handles 3-4 patients with just only 1 staff per 8 hours. In the ward the one-staff handles a lot of patients too.

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Specializes in Surgery, Tele, OB, Peds,ED-True Float RN.

My hospital:

Surgery - 1RN to 8-10 patients (REALLY not enough, ppl hate to work there)

ICU- 1RN to 1-2 patients (3 pts, if they are ready to be transferred to the floor but no bed avail.)

Medicine- 1RN & 1LPN to 7-8 patients

No techs or CNA work in the hospital setting where I work and the LPN's have a very limited scope of practice.

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.
My hospital:

Surgery - 1RN to 8-10 patients (REALLY not enough, ppl hate to work there)

ICU- 1RN to 1-2 patients (3 pts, if they are ready to be transferred to the floor but no bed avail.)

Medicine- 1RN & 1LPN to 7-8 patients

No techs or CNA work in the hospital setting where I work and the LPN's have a very limited scope of practice.

Wow. Is that common in Canada? Those ratios for both medicine and surgery floors scare me.

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ICU never no more than 2 patients and sometimes that is too much. Sometimes the patient is critical so the RN can only handle the one paitent.

In the U.S. nurse to patient ratio has been an on going battle. California has laws. I am pretty sure but do not quote me, but I think no other states have laws. I do not know about Canada, though.

I read an article once..I can not tell you what was actually printed, but this is what I got from it. The article was about the nurse's patient assignment. With the addition of each patient the chances of making a huge med error and harming someone increases drastically. Assignments that are too big are a scary thing for nurses. It is very risky for the patient and the nurse.

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