What Nursing Can Mean--New Followers Re-post

Nurses need to Take Care of Nurses-6

A Nurses View of the Shortage…

As a nurse of over 20 years, there have been many changes.

Nursing continues to be a fulfilling and rewarding profession and one that’s easy to love after all of this time. Taking care of my patients and their families, making them feel better and helping them through the illnesses and life threatening diseases that often bring them to the hospital makes coming into work every day worth it. Their care often includes making snap-decisions that will help save their lives and being proficient in medications and life-saving equipment is only part of why experienced nurses are important. Sometimes the care also includes helping them on their journey to a better place, to “go gently into the night”. There are so many parts of what it takes to make the caring, supportive and knowledgeable nurse.

The decades have continually increased nursing responsibilities, experience and education. Along with this there has been very little compensation, respect or appreciation in a profession that is facing a severe shortage. Understaffing continues to be looked as a “just deal with it” issue, and when concerns arise that patient safety is compromised, many are told, “if you don’t like it you can leave”. More and more responsibility and patient load is added to nurses’ shoulders, and they can barely manage the care they have to give, much less the care they want to give. That extra TLC that can be given when time allows, often when the nurse may not have even had a chance to grab something to eat or drink, or make it to the bathroom, when all shift you have been wishing for a leg bag, is often put on hold for the next crisis taking precedence.

Well, nurses have been leaving for years, and can now leave easier than ever.