What is your opinon of the nursing shortage?

eriksoln, BSN, RN · Feb 26, 2009

I think that people will always be sick, need surgery and by dying... There is not going to be a shortage of RN's...

As my post suggests though, just because there is a need for RNs does not mean there will be someone to make said RN available. Someone has to make money off the situation (administration) otherwise, the attitude is........"Go find your own care, we cant do it for the compensation that is available." I've seen this attitude start to form in a number of facilities. People with no insurance coverage are D/C'd much quicker than two years ago. People who complain about their care are now pretty much told "If you think you'd like someone else's care model more than ours, we do have AMA papers ready for you." That never would have happened two years ago.

Heck, if you think there being a need for RNs automatically means jobs for RNs, take a walk on the LTC side of things for awhile. People are being warehoused, not cared for. Doesnt matter if something goes wrong either, the administration is immune...........it falls on the nurse.

kishinne · Feb 26, 2009

nurses shortage is common here in the philippines beause almost all nurses wants to work abroad and some wants to migrate in foreign countries....it is really visible....

SierraN · Feb 26, 2009

Your replies are very interesting and I thank you for your input. I was surprised to read that some nurses believe there is no nursing shortage. Here is a reputable website that tells a different story:

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/FactSheets/NursingShortage.htm

I wonder if the shortage of nurses is only in the harder to fill positions - For example, I work as a labor and delivery nurse in Alabama - getting a day shift job immediately would be impossible - eventually a night shift position or evening position opens. (I work all shifts as prn, 3-4 days a week while I am in school). If I wanted to work at my hospital on a medical surgical floor, at night, I wouldn't have a lot of trouble finding a job.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Feb 26, 2009

Its not where we are that is the concern...Its where we are headed.

The average age of US RNs is 48......What happens when they start to retire in 2020? Throw in a 20% new grad attrition rate and a shortage is looming on the horizon....

ArwenEvenstar · Feb 26, 2009

I am just responding to the OP, I only glanced at the other replies...

In my opinion, there is "technically" NOT a nursing shortage. What there is is a shortage of nurses willing to work in poor conditions - unsafe pt to nurse ratios, unrealistic expectation that pts must be treated like customers at a hotel, lack of professional respect, lack of support, etc. I left the hospital setting 4 years ago and will NEVER go back. I do still work as a nurse doing private duty...I am essentially "underemployed" considering my experience and education level, but this is about all I can hack in the nursing field. AND I now have a specific plan to phase out of nursing in the next couple years. I have such a feeling of relief that I will no longer have to be a nurse at all and will have other employment! I plan to be in the teaching field by the way, but NOT teaching nursing or anything related to it!

Off the top of my head, I know several other nurses no longer working as nurses....one (don't laugh) works at Walmart, another (again, don't laugh) is a school crossing guard. I say, "don't laugh", not to give any disrespect to these other jobs, but going from a nurse to a barely above minimum wage job is quite a jump down. Besides myself, I also know of a couple other nurses who also have plans to get out of nursing completely.

An article I posted in another post says that 20% of new grads don't even last one year, and leave the field!! I was surprised by this, but not really....

New nurses are bailing, older nurses are bailing....hmmm...you'd think someone somewhere in authority would get a clue. Nurses seem to be a very "voiceless" profession...

CaOTn96 · Feb 26, 2009

Doesnt matter if something goes wrong either, the administration is immune...........it falls on the nurse.

I'd have to write a book in order to tell how many times I've seen hosptials pull that one. Short staff the nurses-mistake is made-hosp admin has all the power and access to all documentation-RN takes the fall. That's the reason 3 experienced RN's I knew quit nursing completely--dangerous staffing. When they thought they'd be backed by their long time hospital they were scapegoated. Nuff said.

nurseinlimbo · Feb 26, 2009

I am in Alberta Canada, and we have a nursing shortage. Due to cutbacks in the 90's we are missing an entire generation of nurses, in the 30's to early 40's age group, since they all moved to the US. I went to school at the age of 31 and there are few nurses my age in this area. The shortage affects me in many ways, #1 being never able to guarantee my hours, getting stuck on double shifts and not being able to take days off when needed due to no one being available to take the shifts.

When I started, I was working majority casual (prn) but now am in a temporary FT Day shift rotation. I haven't had a real vacation in 5 yrs, was off for 3 months with a fractured leg, but other than that it's work work work.

I see older nurses being overworked when they aren't in good health, I see young grads being stressed out by their first year due to overwhelming patient loads, overwhelming staff shortages and OT. I hear on the radio that the government is encouraging nurses who have left to raise families or pursue other careers to return to nursing, but no one addresses why they left in the first place. Now the latest recruitment strategy is to get men into nursing school. In the nineties, the positions were all reduced to part-time, and now the government complains that we only work partime hours. Most nurses work parttime or casual because it is the only way they can spend some time with family and other interests.

lindarn · Feb 26, 2009

We allow ourselves to be, "voiceless", by not unionizing and becoming powerful to control our environment. As long as nurses have no one to turn to that is in our corner to advocate for us, we will forever be, "barefoot and pregnant".

Nurses are beaten down in nursing school to be submissive, and accept and any authority who tells us what to do, regardless of the effect on our patients, and ourselves.

The only solution to this mess, is for nurses to dump the ANA as our official, "professional organization", and join the NNOC of the California Nurses Association. They are the ONLY nursing organization who has accomplished ANYTHING of any substance, for the nursing profession.

Nurses need to become proactive while in nursing school. Lose the attitude that you were, "lucky", to get accepted to nursing school. They are lucky that you applied to their school. The entire, "MARTYR MARY", mentality needs to be left at the door of the school. As long as nurses continue to believe the hospital administration, that Unions are evil, and continue to accept the illegal anti union propaganda, nursing will remain the same.

We need to make alot of noise to the public, and we cannot do this without a STRONG UNION, to back us up. Stop hamstringing our profession by being a wishy washy wall flower. Get out and fight!! Contact the media, and let them know what is going on. Not going to the public in the 90's, was our down fall, and we and our patients have suffered immeasurably bacause of it. JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

linzz · Feb 26, 2009

I came to nursing in my mid thirties and I am already so tired of the many issues we all face. It just seems to never get better. What was an issue ten years ago is still an issue today. I do think it really does boil down to nurses having the ability to stand up for better work conditions. Dare to dream, I say.

Son Tava · Feb 26, 2009

i understand that in many areas of the country, nurses have departed the profession due to toxic work environments. the predators that remain must sustain themselves on the next crop of unwitting new graduates or imported competition in unending diminutive cycle of survival.

nurseinlimbo · Feb 26, 2009

LindaRN, we are unionized in Alberta and it makes no difference.

GrumpyRN63, ADN, RN · Feb 26, 2009

I live in CT, my opinion is the nursing shortage exists due to all the BS and politics, running your butt off all day trying to do your best and just being admonished for press-ganey scores and our missing trivial things to document in eight different places is just demoralizing... not too mention too many chiefs and not enough Indians