Healthcare reform is critical for success: Safe Staffing Saves Lives

Staffing problems are the primary reason professional nurses are leaving the industry today. The ongoing debate of nurse to patient ratio remains unsolved in the majority of health care settings. More than 70% of respondents in the ANA safe staffing online poll said staffing on their unit was insufficient and more than 50% said they are currently considering leaving their jobs.

I am in total agreement with the attitude we are working in an unsafe environment. Understaffing leads to increased stress, fatigue, errors, poor delivery of care, and sub-standard outcomes. Understaffing leads us to forgo our breaks and lunch time in order to get the work done as best we can and the facilities and corporations we work for have grown to depend on our work ethics. They take advantage of our diligence to complete the task with less than adequate staffing.



Emergency rooms are not excluded from this highly debated issue. As a matter of fact, many experienced emergency room nurses are leaving the work force out of sheer exhaustion. Hospitals are being forced to hire new grads into the highly critical arena to find many are not suited for the debacle and thus it registers poorly on cost containment for added expense in time and training of the massive turn over in emergency room personnel.



I would like to see nurse to patient ratios improve. I have been a nurse for over four decades and I have yet to see safe nursing practice related to safe staffing numbers. I firmly believe if our profession was male dominated this unsafe practice would stop. Because we are a female dominated profession we are expected to continue in a substandard practice and work twice as hard and for less money than an education of equal value in any other profession. Why we allow this is something I fail to understand. As a whole we are one of the strongest work forces in the world and yet we go unheard. We have a voice and should use it to promote safe staffing.

Do you agree?