Introduction
Due to the crisis resulting from COVID-19, many nurses leave the profession or stay in it under constant stress, which is extremely dangerous for the health of nurses and patients (Kelly et al., 2021). This paper provides a detailed discussion of the reasons and consequences of nurses’ staff shortage and provides some recommendations on how the crisis can be overcome.
Problem Statement
Doctors and nurses provide effective assistance so that people can overcome various diseases. Competent doctors and nurses provide diagnosis and treatment of new diseases. An increase in the patient-nurse ratio will lead to a deterioration in the services provided. This paper examines the limitations that cause a decrease in the number of professional nurses to find practical solutions to the problem. Unethical communication practices at workplaces due to increased stress and workload require special attention. Noteworthy, all the adverse impacts cause a decrease in patient healthcare outcomes and satisfaction.
Background Information
Nurses are key stakeholders in ensuring public health because of their unique skills, role, and competencies. The Sustainable Development Goals for Ensuring high-quality public health is a nationally recognized document that regulates strategic progress in the medical field, and increasing the number of working professional nurses is a central goal of the document. The global pandemic has led to massive overcrowding and increased stress and has led to additional investment needs in nursing support programs. Equally important, it is necessary to create proper working conditions, including an ethical and culturally sensitive environment, a normal work-life balance, and a decent salary.
Contributing Factors
Burnout is a major cause of the nursing shortage and is primarily caused by the nurse-to-patient ratio. The three aspects of burnout, including cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and a low sense of personal accomplishment, are problems that can be addressed by managing the staffing problem. More energy and time allow for improving the quality of uninterrupted time that nurses allocate to care for patients and their families within the framework of family-centered therapy or at-home visits.
Effects on Healthcare
The nursing shortage has a serious impact on the healthcare system and affects the quality of patient care. Some institutions in the United States believe that solving the problem of the shortage of nurses will solve the problem of increasing mortality. To solve the problem in more than a third of cases, it is enough to provide nurses with proper working conditions. The responsibility for this should be placed on the health care system as a social and economic state institution. Nurses need safer distribution of patients, reliable staff, and better pay so they can stay in the profession without becoming victims of moral and physical exhaustion.
Nursing and midwifery are federally regulated occupations because of their importance to the nation’s well-being (WHO, 2022). The health of the population is one of the main elements of the overall success of the state, including economic and social achievements. Nurses have a significant impact on communities and provide essential care to vulnerable sections of society. Equally important, nurses help solve complexities and challenges in relationships between different groups in society. Nurses and midwives also guarantee a healthy future and sustainable development of society thanks to the health, well-being, and proper upbringing of children. Nurses protect families, and human relationships, and strengthen communities by inspiring initiatives of mutual support and communication between people.
Statistics
The statistics perfectly illustrate the problems that cause a decrease in the percentage of nurses who would prefer to stay in the profession. The work of a nurse is associated with significant emotional investment and requires a lot of energy and special knowledge, as well as compassion, resilience, physical strength, and fortitude. Therefore, the demand for nurses in society is usually higher than the number of nurses who are ready to work in this field. In 2030, the world will need an additional nine million nurses and midwives (WHO, 2022). The needs of society will increase in the services of emergency nurses, midwives, and registered nurses.
Layoffs and attrition are leading to a nursing shortage. As the world’s population grows, the need for nurses will increase, as will their role in providing basic health care services. The shortage of nurses is a problem that must be solved as soon as possible because all members of society depend on the quality of nursing services. The shortage of nurses is associated with difficulties in improving health and fighting disease, which causes increased workload and reduced quality of nursing care (Rosenberg, 2019). Reasons for nurses leaving practice include inadequate staffing, insufficient reserve, inability to receive compensation for working in dangerous conditions during a pandemic, low growth compared to experience, and lack of breaks.
Culture
Culture is one of the determining factors that can impair work intentions or, on the contrary, destroy the working atmosphere. Workers coming from other countries need calm conditions to master some cultural nuances within the framework of working conditions. Therefore, the absence of cultural and racial discrimination is extremely important. The ethical component also affects the quality of work processes and can both destroy and improve the working atmosphere.
The work of nurses is associated with risks to the health and well-being of employees, which causes a shortage. Interestingly, an ethical work environment can reduce risks and make conditions more conducive, helping to reduce the nursing shortage. At the same time, adverse working conditions and staff turnover can also lead to claims for compensation from the employer (Tei-Tominaga & Nakanishi, 2018). The solution to this problem is to create an ethical workplace atmosphere, as the workplace atmosphere is important in healthcare settings for employee retention.
Solutions
A comprehensive approach to politics, education, and the economy can solve the problem of staff shortages. Political decisions and the allocation of resources can significantly change the situation of staff shortages. Nurses should receive financial support, in the form of increased wages and subsidies, such as the cost of children’s education. Increasing social status and comprehensive financial measures will significantly contribute to the retention of nurses in the profession. Equally important, the policy guaranteeing the protection of nurses at work should be implemented at the state level. Reducing the shortage of personnel is possible through retention, increasing job satisfaction, and preventing burnout.
Conclusion
With advancements, nurses need to be increasingly technically literate alongside the core specific knowledge they need on the job. The professionalism and emotional and energetic contribution of nurses is no less than that of doctors, but nurses receive less return from work in the form of social security. The pandemic and other negative impacts have led to problems with the shortage of nurses and these problems must be solved through the provision of social support, financial benefits, and psychological support. Managers of medical institutions must respect the rights of nurses to an adequate balance between life and work and ensure proper working conditions.
References
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