The nursing shortage has been a rising concern in the health sector for the past few years. The shortage arises when the demand for nursing professionals does not meet the supply. The impact of the nursing shortage is significantly felt during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the ongoing pandemic, nurses have found themselves operating in demanding environments. Thus, patient care during Covid-19 has been considerably affected by nursing capacity.
During the ongoing pandemic, nurses have found themselves operating under crisis standards of care environments. With the rapidly growing number of infections and limited personnel, most nurses work long hours without rest. Therefore, the nurses experience burnout, which has created room for errors and a low rescue rate ( Haddad et al., 2020). Notably, the nurses have not offered quality care to all their patients during the pandemic. Additionally, nurses are assigned patients they cannot handle, contributing to overcrowding in the emergency room (ER).
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Overcrowding in the emergency room has been a significant concern during the pandemic. Nurses have to deal with large numbers of patients. Most times, nurses are overwhelmed by the number of patients, and some have to wait for long hours in the emergency room. Overcrowding in the ER is a significant contributor to death (Mareiniss, 2020). There has been reported Covid-19 deaths in the ER. Additionally, Covid-19 requires social distancing, but this is impossible because hospitals cannot accommodate many patients due to the nursing shortage.
Conclusively, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it clear there is a need to address the nursing shortage issue. There is a significant gap between the demand and supply for professional nurses. In most health centers nurses are overworked and the ER is overcrowded. Thus, to enhance the quality of care rendered to patients, there is a need to address nursing capacity.
References
Haddad, L. M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2020). Nursing shortage. StatPearls Publishing.
Mareiniss, D. P. (2020). The impending storm: COVID-19, pandemics and our overwhelmed emergency departments. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine .
