I wonder what the ER's will be like in 2010 when the continent will be short the predicted 400,000 nurses?
Governments set forth plans and policies to ban hallway medicine, set nurse to patient ratios, give out monies to recruit more nurses yet authorities continue to predict short numbers of nurses.
Our population grows older in larger numbers, and we continue to live longer. But we are also unhealthy. Obesity and all its associated problems continues to rise to near epidemic proportions. People are increasingly going to recur services of hospitals so how is it we are not heading toward MORE problems of hallway medicine.
In one of my more recent past nursing positions I have had to deal with nurses refusing to take anymore patient assignments. The management authority side of the brain says,
"you must, we can not turn people away requiring care".
The more human nursing side of me agrees with the nurse;
"If I take on more patients how can I not endanger the lives of all my patients?"
What happens when nurses on the units refuse to take patients is, for a time anyway, they are placed on stretchers in hallways, cared for the nurses working the ERs. How bloody safe is that!
An ER nurse has his/her more immediate standards of practice to contend with. Now they have to somehow find the time, and energy (and I don't mean that in any nasty way) to care for a med/surg classified patient.
Tell me, Mr Prime Minister, Mr President, how well could you tolerate being cared for in an unsecured, total privacy lacking hallway? Why should you have priviledges above and beyond any other health care consumer?
No more studies. Utilize the excellent resources we already have. A piece of paper does not necessarily mean a better nurse.
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