In hospitals with a high patient-to-nurse proportion, healthcare workers experience dissatisfaction, burnout, and patients suffer from higher rates of death and abandonment than those in organizations with a lower patient-to-nurse ratio. Some states and even countries have begun passing laws to limit the ratio of patients to nurses. Despite this, the ratios increase when there are insufficient human resources to meet the demand. Efforts are needed to increase the availability of nursing resources throughout various disasters, such as a natural disaster or a pandemic, which is very relevant.
Even today, despite nursing being one of the fastest growing professions in the US, the lack of nurses is a severe problem. During the pandemic, the demand for nursing services skyrocketed. That, combined with other existing issues, has greatly exacerbated the shortage of nurses and emphasized the problems nurses face in the workplace. Nurses are under enormous stress and bear the brunt of an overburdened, poorly functioning healthcare system (Li et al., 2022). The shortage of nurses leads to errors, increased morbidity and mortality (Li et al., 2022). On the other hand, the lack of health workers, in particular nurses, was a problem even before the spread of the pandemic. The current situation has only emphasized the need to maintain a sufficient number of registered nurses (RNs).
During pandemics such as COVID-19, registered nurses are vital responders and providers of quality healthcare. A sustainable RN workforce plays a significant role in maintaining the reserve capacity of the healthcare system. In addition, they oversee increased patient care needs such as patient triage, care provision and emergency treatment. Thus, it is impossible to provide safe, sustainable and efficient care without a reliable RN staff during a pandemic.
Reference
Li, Y., Hockenberry, J. M., Chen, J., & Cimiotti, J. P. (2022). Registered nurses: Can our supply meet the demand during a disaster? BMC Nursing, 21(1). Web.