Nurs-6053 assign wk2

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Nurse Shortage

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In recent years, nurse shortage has been a major crisis facing the globe. This has mainly been more evident as the world continues to combat the COVID 19 pandemic. The country has faced a significant challenge due to the increasing healthcare demand and the number of nurses and physicians available for responding adequately to combating the pandemic (Seren et al.,2019). This challenge of inadequate physicians, nurses, and doctors for serving the communities is expected to worsen as the country’s population increases and ages.

Nursing shortages are said to be the primary cause of medical errors and the increased illness and death rates. In most healthcare facilities with high patient-to-nurse ratios, nurses experience exhaustion and discontent, leading to higher patient mortality and failure-to-rescue rates than facilities with lower patient-to-nurse ratios (Marć et al., 2019). The leading cause of nurse shortage is the high number of nurses entering the retirement age, an aging population requiring more medical care, and the faculty shortages limiting the capacity of nursing schools to admit more students.

My health system working setting have responded to issue of nurse shortage by increasing nurse salaries as the current nurses are most dissatisfied with their salaries. Therefore, increasing salaries and bonuses can help rectify this problem and motivate more students to pursue the nursing profession. Equally, health facilities have opted for seasonal employment of temporary nurses during periods with high hospital admittances. Generally, people do not get sick at the rate throughout the year. Depending on the season, hiring nurses can help reduce the patient care waiting period and resolve the issue.

Additionally, nurse education should be restructured and made more accessible and convenient by giving students the option of enrolling in online and distance learning programs. This option can enable individuals who would have else rejected the profession to reconsider enrolling in the program. Online and distance learning helps attract members of other careers to achieve nursing qualifications. The alternative is more attractive for those nurses who are not comfortable with the conservative teaching techniques presently used by nurse instructors.

References

Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing shortage–a prospect of global and local policies. International nursing review, 66(1), 9-16.

Seren Intepeler, S., Esrefgil, G., Yilmazmis, F., Bengu, N., Gunes Dinc, N., Ileri, S., ... & Dirik, H. F. (2019). Role of job satisfaction and work environment on the organizational commitment of nurses: a cross-sectional study. Contemporary nurse, 55(4-5), 380-390.