#NurseShortage #HealthcareCrisis #NursingCareer #MedicalField
🏥 Why is there a shortage of nurses? 🏥
If you’ve been wondering why there’s a shortage of nurses in the healthcare industry, you’re not alone. The idea that everyone wants to be a nurse or have a career in the medical field is a common misconception. In reality, there are several factors contributing to the shortage of nurses, which is causing a healthcare crisis in many parts of the world. Let’s take a closer look at why there’s a shortage of nurses and what can be done to address this critical issue.
## The Growing Demand for Healthcare Services
One of the primary reasons for the shortage of nurses is the growing demand for healthcare services. As the population continues to age, the need for healthcare services has increased significantly. This has led to a higher demand for nurses to provide essential care to patients in hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities.
### Example:
– The baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age, leading to an increase in chronic health conditions and the need for long-term care.
## Lack of Nursing Education Programs
Another factor contributing to the shortage of nurses is the lack of nursing education programs. There are not enough nursing schools to accommodate the growing demand for nurses, leading to a limited number of qualified graduates entering the workforce each year.
### Example:
– Many nursing schools have long waiting lists, making it difficult for aspiring nurses to access the education and training they need to enter the profession.
## High Turnover Rates and Burnout
Nursing is a challenging and demanding profession, which can lead to high turnover rates and burnout among nurses. Many nurses report feeling overworked, underappreciated, and emotionally drained, leading them to leave the profession or take extended leaves of absence.
### Example:
– The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated burnout among nurses, as they have been on the frontlines of the crisis, working long hours and facing high levels of stress and exhaustion.
## Competitive Job Market
The competitive job market is another contributing factor to the shortage of nurses. Hospitals and healthcare facilities are competing for a limited pool of qualified nurses, leading to staffing shortages and increased workloads for existing nurses.
### Example:
– Some hospitals and healthcare facilities are offering sign-on bonuses and other incentives to attract and retain nurses, but the shortage remains a critical issue.
## Solutions to Address the Nurse Shortage
While the shortage of nurses is a complex and multifaceted issue, there are several solutions that can help address the crisis and ensure that patients receive the care they need.
1. Increasing the number of nursing education programs to train more nurses and meet the growing demand for healthcare services. This could include expanding existing programs and offering incentives for nursing schools to increase their capacity.
2. Implementing strategies to reduce turnover rates and burnout among nurses, such as providing better work-life balance, mental health support, and professional development opportunities.
3. Improving the working conditions and compensation for nurses to attract and retain qualified professionals in the field.
4. Encouraging diversity and inclusivity in the nursing profession to ensure that different communities are represented and that all patients receive culturally competent care.
By addressing these issues and implementing solutions, we can work towards alleviating the shortage of nurses and ensuring that patients receive the high-quality care they deserve. If you’re passionate about making a difference in the healthcare industry, consider pursuing a career in nursing and joining the effort to address the nurse shortage.
In conclusion, the shortage of nurses is a pressing issue that requires attention and action from healthcare leaders, policymakers, and the community as a whole. By understanding the factors contributing to the shortage and working together to implement solutions, we can ensure that patients receive the care they need and deserve. Whether you’re considering a career in nursing or simply want to learn more about this critical issue, it’s essential to stay informed and engaged in the conversation about the nurse shortage.
So, why is there a shortage of nurses? The answer is complex, but by raising awareness and taking meaningful steps to address the issue, we can work towards a healthcare system that is equipped to meet the needs of patients and healthcare professionals alike.
Covid was a nightmare
Pretty much anyone can become a nurse and it pays relatively well. Accepting those two facts, the logical conclusion is that the job sucks all the ass.
The work is hard, both physically and emotionally. The hours are long. The pay does not justify either. Covid also broke a lot of people – endless busier-than-busy shifts, lots of people dying, wearing PPE for whole 12+ hour shifts.
Add on politicians and media constantly repeating “thank you to our essential hospital workers” while opposing reasonable pay rises, it’s hardly surprising people aren’t choosing nursing careers
Working with sick and dying people is depressing.
People didn’t want to take the jab.
Most people? I highly doubt that. I would never want to be in a medical field, especially as a nurse. I don’t want a job that involves dealing with bodily fluids, or having to touch people.
A friend of mine says she had a scholarship and she wanted to go through nursing. She went through the program and said it was definitely not for her so she switched. It’s a very hard job and nurses/doctors have one of the highest statistics for depression and suicide. You have to be mentally tough for the job.
If history repeats itself, we allowed individuals from another country to remediate the prior nursing shortage. IYKYK
Being a medical technician requires less formal education, paya the same and isn’t as demanding.
Or people are leaving Healthcare altogether, especially after covid
At least in Finland the problem is that most places (public and private) are so understaffed that it is not possible to treat patients well. A normal person with normal morale simply can’t handle mentally the fact that every day at work they have to decide which patients to leave untreated or how badly to treat the rest. They are real persons who suffer from these decisions.
It is also a very physically demanding field because of understaffed places. In many cases nurses have to handle patients alone and it takes a lot of force in poor ergonomy to, for example, help an old patient at shower or toilet. It becames even more heavy if the person is demented and tries to actively resist. In lots of professions there is a lifting limit of 35kg or less, but for nurses there is no such limit in handling patients. In the good old days there was 2 or 3 nurses handling the patient.
Also there used to be lots of other professionals in addition to nurses. These other people worked in supportive roles like washing clothes, cleaning the places, preparing the food etc.. Nowadays the nurses do all that work ALSO as the other persons have been fired (from places like old peoples’ homes with patients requiring 24h assistance, demented people, handicapped people etc..).
In Finland lots of nurses leave the profession and retrain to other fields because of this. They retrain to construction, electrical installation, social services etc.. I personally know people who had worked for 20+ years as nurses, and have retrained now in the last 10 years. The healthcare system in Finland is in death spiral because of this.
The shortage is because of the companies and public employers understaffing most places. Economical greed, to say it bluntly. Poor leadership is second guess.
There isn’t a shortage of nurses.
There is a shortage of people wanting to work in unsafe environments
The number of people leaving nursing because of retirement or just being burnt to an absolute crisp from caring for people through hell and back is greater than the number of incoming nurses. Plus a new grad nurse doesn’t have the same level of experience as a more experienced nurse.
Places don’t want to hire enough nurses to support the amount and level of patients. And every time nurses make it work, they think “see! They can do more work with free staff! “ and then take their big bonuses to buy a vacation home. Then they show the nurses a PowerPoint that says that they are not excellent enough on patient surveys and please create an action plan on how people that don’t do your job can perceive you as more excellent
Low pay in a number of places plus burn out!
Plus nursing school is hard. Less than 80% is a fail. And you need programs and teachers (aka nurses with extra degrees) to teach. The boards aren’t a cake walk either.
Nurses have a sub. I recommend a little bit of reading over there. It is Illuminating.
That pay isn’t terrific for the work. It’s okay.
Hospitals essentially have all agreed not to pay nurses what they are worth. There is always a nursing shortage but all hospitals have agreed to not compete on price. Therefore there will always be a shortage. This makes the world harder. The shortage will get worse with boomers dying off.
Nursing is a good base. You can get specialty that is better than a regular nursing job.
Nurse practitioner is where it’s at.
At least in the US, most nursing jobs mean working varying long hours, with rotating weekends and holidays on-call. This is really disruptive to having any free time plans or family time.
The hospitals expect you to report to work no matter the weather, so you’re risking your life to commute in road-closing conditions in many areas.
And there’s the fact that the nursing career ladder doesn’t quite go all the way to the top unless you go to med school to be a doctor or work your way into administration, especially in the hospital setting.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch on how difficult the work is physically and emotionally.
I’ve been a nurse 17 years, my mother, grandmother and wife also nurses. It’s difficult work. I work in critical care and sometimes emergency room. There not only is a shortage of nurses, but doctors, aides, and ancillary staff. Working in a hospital is tough.
If nursing is a career you wish to pursue, I highly recommend you get a job as a nursing aide in a hospital. It’s an entry level position and you can see first hand what you would be getting into. You will be verbally and physically assulted fairly regularly. About 2/3 of work place assaults happen in healthcare. It’s also often a fun and rewarding job.
Lots of nurses leave bedside after several years of working it. It’s one of the most physically and mentally exhausting positions in nursing. Covid was tough on a lot of us, but myself and many other critical care nurses actually ‘enjoyed’ it. I actually took a second job during this time.
My ex’s mom was a nurse. Granted she started later in life (her 50s), but she needed a good steady job.
She graduated and started working. Later down the line, she experienced anal and vaginal prolapse. She got surgery at the hospital she worked at. So you would assume that, being a building of medical professionals, they would allow her the proper time to heal?
Nope. They told her if she doesn’t return to work before her healing period was done, she would lose her job. SURPRISE! The surgery failed.
Because nursing sucks. You’re overworked, underpaid, abused, the list goes on and on. Not a field worth going into financially or mentally.
Thats’ a strange thing, there’s probably an abundance of nurses – just not ones that want to work in the environments as they exist.
I have a coworker that was an RN. He worked as a nurse for 2 years through Covid and saw too much horrible shit. The straw that broke the camels back was a teenager begged him to kill her she was in so much pain then dying a few hours later. He now works with me as a business analyst. Nursing seems like a traumatic career.
Horribly demanding job that doesn’t pay enough for what they have to do.
My wife quit nursing after only being in the field 3 years. She graduated nursing school right before COVID hit and her entire career was during the pandemic.
In that time, the hospital refused to keep PPE on hand. They also refused to hire more nurses to keep up with the overflow, making my wife and others work so many extra shifts that it bordered illegal.
To top it all off, when my wife became pregnant – the administrators called her selfish for taking FMLA to recover from delivery.
Needless to say – she never went back after maternity leave.
Oh yeah people wanna be in it, then if they’re smart they gtfo quick unless you enjoy being a human punching bag for a living.
I can’t speak for all nurses, but I know a few in my area. It’s very much like teaching; unless you get in somewhere big (aka: lots of $$$)… you’re doing it because you love it and can hopefully move up someday.
There are good gigs, paying $25+ an hour, but the majority around here are more like $14-$16/hour. About as much as McDonald’s, but with longer hours.
I worked at a place that hemmed and hawed about bumping CNA pay to $12 an hour at the beginning of the pandemic to compete with places like McDonalds. I can’t imagine the pay was that much better higher up the ranks.
I heard a nursing organization recently saying there’s a demand problem not a supply problem. Meaning that there may be as many people entering the nursing field as ever but as the baby boomers age, they need a huge amount of medical care and our system can’t keep up the demand for care resulting in a shortage. Also the baby boomers who worked as nurses have retired.
I think this is part of it but also we did see a number of nurses leave the profession during the pandemic because as others have stated it can be very difficult and thankless work
Hospital nursing= high stakes, unsafe staffing, and getting treated like shit all day. Oh, and if you make a mistake, you go to jail. It baffles me that the general public isn’t aware of how strained healthcare is. And there’s still the outdated public perception that people become nurses because they love caregiving. No.
Looking at the comments, I don’t see one reason that no one ever wants to talk about: bullying. There is a huge problem with bullying among the female healthcare worker population. 60% of nurses leave their first job within 6 months because of excessive bullying, harassment, or even violence at the hands of other nurses. “Nurses eat their young” is a popular industry term that’s been around for like 60 years.
Burnout is a major factor because they have to do everything in a medical setting that the doctor doesn’t. Which is most of it. While trying to have a smile on their face and not pee their pants because they haven’t had a break in 5 hours.
In my neck of the woods, a huge chunk of the staff were lost to mandates. And then because there weren’t people waiting in the wings to replace them, the hospitals just overworked the existing ones.
To then compound THAT, competing hospitals (why the fuck is *that* a thing btw) gave different levels of signing bonuses. ONLY to people who came on new. So staff then quit to try and re-apply to get those, or had strikes to get them. Because long-time employees were being paid less than 0-day new hires.
There are also more applicants than there are educational slots.
Cuz the working conditions are shit.
Where the hell did you get the impression everyone wanted to be a nurse? That’s just bizarre.
Just going to +1 many of the “it’s a hard job / rough profession” posts.
But I haven’t seen many people commenting that the medical needs of society in general are increasing. Baby boomers are retiring and getting older, and advances in medicine means that we can keep a lot of patient with complex / terminal diseases alive a lot longer than we used to. So not only is there an increase in the actual number of patients that hospitals are seeing, there’s an increase in the average care demand that these patients need – and most of that falls onto nursing/respiratory/CNAs.
I work at a top children’s hospital in the US, and 8 years ago having a census of over 500 patients meant we were quite busy, and now we top 600 patients pretty regularly.
Covid.
All the new nurses straight out of nursing school got to feel the effects of the hospitals not giving one fuck about them. A lot of places didn’t have enough N95 masks for staff and they had to reuse their masks every day.
On top of that there are some states (like Nevada) that don’t have patient ratios.
Hospitals don’t give a fuck about their patients or their nurses and a lot them left the profession
Because nursing sucks. You can make good money but it beats you down
From a parent of a nursing student side they are having a couple of difficulties. 1. They don’t have the educational staff or facilities to train them even at big SEC schools. They aren’t accepting as many students because of it. 2. They also don’t have the staff at the facilities such as hospitals to train the students during clinicals.
Side note there is an increase of staff being abused and terribly injured by patients with little to no support or consequences.
I feel the shortage fuels the shortages. Long hours, expensive school, grueling work, compassion fatigue, low pay for the amount of work, are all due to the lack of staff which also makes people quit, thus adding to the shortages. so it kind of spirals.
A lot of people retired at once due to covid. Also, a lot of people died. School is expensive as well and – from my experience in looking for higher education in nursing, there are a pathetic number of opportunities to get grants or meaningful amounts of scholarship money. I saw there is a Nurse Corps program that offers free tuition in my state but it’s very hard to get accepted…
So it’s a number of factors.
Under staffing and overworked and also grossly underpaid!
For the UK nurses, Brexit is a big factor after Covid imo
The medical field as a whole has declined quite a bit sadly. Instead of truly practicing medicine, most jobs are about expediting care to visit as many patients as quickly as possible (to make a clinic more money), doing charting, billing, insurance and other administrative overhead, not to mention politics and the fact that many care facilities have been bought up by private equity which has destroyed the culture. They burn out health care practitioners and the money isn’t worth it in a lot of cases.
Nursing burns you out quick. Facilities are for profit, and staffing is where they cut corners. Most states don’t have safe staffing ratios so you’re always working short. Patients are verbally, physically, and sexually abusive with no consequences because they are essentially “customers”. Facility administration offers no support. Patients make false claims and you can find yourself in litigation.
There is no shortage … there are many nurses looking for jobs across US, the problem is the hospitals/nursing homes not paying a decent salary and second: you really need someone inside to refer you…
Source: wife working in the system
I graduated from nursing school 6 years ago. Myself and lots of classmates have left bedside nursing for remote or non-bedside jobs already.
The only place to even consider it in the US is California. If you aren’t planning on living there, dont do it. Still has many of the common issues but at least pay is better and they have legally mandated ratios (may not always be followed but less likely to have insane situations).
Because it has somehow become acceptable to assault us and treat us like garbage.