Free Nursing Shortage Impact on Health Sector Essay Sample
Introduction
The current economical evolution that is going on in the world today has resulted to shortage of employees in the major health institutions as it has resulted to the shortage of nurses and physicians in America and the world over.
It is estimated that the United States of America will experience a shortage of approximately 760,000 nurses. The figures include the physicians and specialists by the year 2020 (Roman, 2008). And the number is expected to increase depending on the economy of the country at that time. This is an alarming aspect that will have negative effects on the health sector.
Factors that results to the shortage
There are several reasons that have resulted to the shortage of nurses in our medical facilities; one of these reasons includes job stress related to the job in question. This job stress includes the use of shifts, deaths of their patients, conflict amongst themselves and the physician, workload, lack of support, in appropriate emotions to deal with the patients and uncertainty concerning treatment (Fitzpatrick, 2005).
The other cause for the shortage is the poor salaries and benefits package of the nurses, the present pay they receive is very in appropriate and isn't equivalent to what they do in there work place. The low pay demoralize the nurses more and they opt to quit there jobs for other jobs because of the professions low pay. The numbers of the nurses is also dropping because most of the students don't want to enroll for nursing classes and they opt to take other technical courses that will land them well paying jobs. This makes them leave nursing field as they believe this will not help them in future as its pay is very low (Roman, 2008).
The tutors of the nurses aren't given the appropriate pay that encourages them to perform there duties efficiently, In that this has resulted to the shortage of the medical teachers that will train the nurses as the colleges these classes are being offered lack the trainers.
The results of the shortage
The shortage of nurses in America will have very many negative results one main issue includes the easy transmission of diseases from one patient to the other. This is as a result of the lack of proper care by the nurses and at the same time there will be poor diagnosis of the diseases. The shortage of the nurses will also result to the sudden death of patients with diseases that can be easily be treated and also subject the patients to more pain while in hospital because of the lack of care from the nurses (Smith, 2010). It will also result to sidelining of some patients in the medical institutions thus making them left behind as the limited numbers of the nurses will not be sufficient to serve all of them.
Ways of solving these shortages
The best way of solving this shortage of nurses is through the use of improving the working conditions of the nurses (McKinnon, 2007). This is where the government invests more in providing the nurses with the appropriate equipments; that will be used in their duties this includes gloves another materials that they really need in order to conduct there duties effectively.
The government should also increase the pay that they receive thus motivating them thus making them become interested in there work and reduce the numbers of the nurses who shift to other professions (Smith, 2010). The government should also increase the numbers of students taking the nursing courses this is by encouraging them and offering them with incentives and guarantees of a better pay and fast employment.
Why is the public asked to join in the increasing the numbers of nurses
In the article the public has been asked to improvise on some ways in which it can address the issues that are currently affecting the shortage of the nurse in our medical hospitals, the public has been asked to be caring to the patients and should not neglect them and take them to the hospital were they can be taken care by the nurses while they can be nursed by the public without going to the hospitals (Roman, 2008). The public is also asked to prevent themselves from contracting diseases in order to ease congestions in the hospitals.