RENO, April 8, 2008 – Nevada, like most of America, is facing a crisis of too few nurses willing to work at the bedside. The cause – and result – of this shortage is the stressful environment hospitals create by choosing not to safely and adequately staff our hospitals. Nurses enter their profession to spend time caring for patients, and leave when they are unable to do so.
The result for the nurses and hospital workers left behind is not just job dissatisfaction levels that are four times greater than for the average American worker, but also burnout levels that are higher than for other, non-hospital healthcare workers.[1]
So, it should be no surprise that the 30 percent of Nevada nurses who leave the their first job in their first year out of school, and the 57 percent of nurses who leave in their second, cite patient care concerns such as unsafe patient ratios, not having enough time to spend with patients, and working conditions that are not conducive to safe patient care.[2]
Renown has spent more than $300 million to build a state of the art healing environment for their patients. But, until they start adequately staffing the floors of that hospital, it will continue to burn out hardworking nurses and hospital workers.
My Story, by Ruth Flack, RN, Post-Partum
“I’ve been an RN at Renown for 20 years now and it’s getting more and more stressful all the time. I work part time to help balance the stress and pressure of not having enough nurses on the floor. In order to give my best to my patients I choose to work only two days a week, even if it means I limit my expenditures and am careful with my bills so I can live on less.
“As a post partum newborn nurse, I can have to care for as many as 14 patients in a day – meaning 7 mothers and 7 newborns. People think of mothers and new babies as a nice and calm environment. Quite contrarily, things can get hectic really quickly in the hospital. A baby can choke, a mother can hemorrhage, and a baby can have a drop in blood sugar that can be life threatening. It takes a lot to stay on top of it all.
“The only reason the stress of dealing with these types of frantic situations is manageable for me is because I’ve elected to pursue a lifestyle that doesn’t require me to work full time. Not everyone has that option.
“Often times my license is put on the line. For example, I’ve been required to carry a full patient load and operate as a charge nurse. As a charge nurse, I am taking on tasks like coordinating with the Labor and Delivery Unit to admit patients and allocate them to nurses. I have to monitor the patients and nurses on the floor to determine whether the nurses can take a mother that has had a c-section or a patient on meds that requires closer monitoring. I have to be able to make good decisions to try to balance the workload for my fellow nurses.
“Nurses don’t want to keep working under these conditions. Our level of efficiently begins to degrade with the emotional and physical stress. There is just no time for real care, for real compassionate care. It’s no wonder nurses are leaving the bedside.”
Experts Agree! Understaffing affects nurses and patients.
According to a 2002 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “higher emotional exhaustion and greater job dissatisfaction in nurses” is strongly and significantly associated with the number of patients they must care for. Each additional patient over four per nurse is associated with a 23 percent chance of job burnout and a 15 percent chance increase in odds of job dissatisfaction.[3]
Of nurses experiencing burnout and dissatisfaction, 43 percent are likely to leave their job – compared to only 11 percent of nurses who aren’t burned out. Every time a nurse leaves the profession, hospitals and patients and their fellow nurses lose an important resource of experience and training. The costs to replace a nurse are significant.
The same study found that hospitals with low staffing levels not only were burning out nurses, but they also had higher levels of patient mortality. The conclusion? Safe, enforceable staffing ratios “represents a credible approach to reducing mortality and increasing nurse retention in hospital practice.”
Join SEIU Nevada Nurses at their Rally!
WHAT: Rally for Higher Quality Care at Renown!
WHEN: Thursday, April 10 at 1:00 PM
WHERE: Pickett Park, Across from Renown Regional Medical Center
SEIU Nevada nurses are asking Renown – help us spend more time helping patients by fully staffing our hospital!
This is the 8th story in a 10-day countdown to the SEIU nurses at Renown’s rally for patient care on April 10. For more information about SEIU contract negotiations at Renown, to interview a nurse or to talk to an academic expert about why we need enforceable staffing ratios in our hospitals, contact Hilary Haycock at 745-1532 or hhaycock@seiunv.org. Or visit our website at http://www.seiunv.org/healthcare/renonurses/Default.aspx.
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[1] Linda Aiken, et al, “Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction,” Journal of the American Medical Association, October 23/30, 2002, Vol. 288, No. 16.
[2] Bowles, Cheryl and Lori Candela. “First Job Experiences of Recent R.N. Graduates.” Journal of Nursing Administration, 2005.
[3] Aiken, Linda H., Sean P. Clarke, Douglas M. Stone, Julie Sochalski and Jeffrey H. Silber. “Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout and Job Dissatisfaction.” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 288, No. 16, 10/23/2002..