Enayeth (2017) says being a nurse comes with two major challenges. These include: long hours of working and short staffing which means there are fewer nurses that share the long hours of work.
Fewer nurses in hospitals often causes fatigue and frustration on the nurses available. Being a nurse is probably one of the hardest jobs as they often work in shifts and have no breaks even during pubic holidays. Nurses work shifts of up to 12 hours per day without breaks and no opportunities to rest or eat. Nurses without rest risk chances of obesity, diabetes, depression and cardiovascular disease this is because nurses are not given time to exercise.
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Staying awake becomes a problem to many nurses and this often leads to errors during shifts. Such errors include: overdosing a patient, administering wrong doses and omitting doses. Tired nurses may also increase risks of poor health care to the patients. Today we hear of cases where patients have been neglected because of limited nurses in hospitals. In her research, Enayeth (2017) stated that a patient outcome that is poor and a rates of death that are high are majorly contributed by the low patient to nurse ratio.
Stimpfei et al. (2017) stated that a remedy for short staffing and long hours of work include: Workload management method where nurses are given a certain number as there is a direct link between nurses’ workload and patient outcomes. This ensure that the amount of care given by each nurse to each nurse is sufficient to them assuring a faster healing process for the patients.
Nurses play a vital role in the medical sector as they have more contact hours with patients when they check up on them, administer medicine to them, when cleaning wounds and helping patients to move around in hospital. Nurses thus require adequate rest and sufficient time to eat and even exercise to be able to take care of their patients. This will also hasten the healing process of patients, this is because nurses will in a better working condition.
References
Enayeth S., (2017). The shift of a nurse: Long hours and short staffed. Retrieved on March 30, 2017 from http://hellocaremail.com
Stimpfei W. A., Sloane D. M., and Aiken L. H., (2012). Balancing nurses’ workload in hospital nurses, the higher the levels of burnout and patient dissatisfaction. Retrieved in November 2012 from http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
