Acute care settings are starting to get serious about safe staffing ratios, with some push from registering bodies. But my concern is that extended / long term care residents are not getting the same consideration and care...and that is dangerous. Not everyone in these facilities is set to pass from this world in the near future. Many still have quite a few years left to live. See, long term care facilities are not just for older folk. Accident victims who end up paraplegic, perhaps even requiring a ventilator to assist breathing, can spend 5, 10 or more years in long term care.
I have worked in several nursing homes/extended care facilities and it seems (at present) that the normal staffing ratio is one (1) licensed nurse (RN or LPN) for 30 or more residents. That one licensed nurse is responsible for medications and treatments for all those residents. I have also worked with ventilated patients/residents where nurse/patient ratios seem to show that the lives of those in long term care are not as sacred as those in an acute care setting. In hospital, each nurse has no more than 2 ventilated patients. In long term care, on night shifts particularly, each licensed nurse has 3, and far to often 5, residents to themselves PLUS another 10 (or more) non-ventilated residents.
I said earlier this is dangerous and I stand by that. Dangerous for the lives and quality of life for the residents as well as the professional and personal life of the nurse.
