Nurses throughout history, including myself, have had a calling to perform the special work that we perform. Hospitals have increasingly been staffing with “bare-bones staffing.” Too frequent within our profession is the normalization of unsafe conditions supported by administration. Patients are in the hospital setting because they are too sick to be safely cared for at home, skilled nursing facilities or other settings. They are hospitalized due to the need for the around-the-clock assessment and prompt intervention when a patient’s condition deteriorates.
We have the opportunity to share the most vulnerable times with our patients and their families. There is an emotional impact to being unable to provide that level of human connection due to our ever-increasing pace within acute healthcare settings. The finding that a higher patient-to-nurse ratio was associated with job dissatisfaction and burnout, regardless of average wage, has been supported in research. An excessive workload exhausts workers’ energy and makes recovery impossible. Effective and gratifying work — the satisfaction that comes from providing good quality care to patients — becomes less attainable. Staffing more nurses = better patient outcomes for our friends, family and community members.
Present-day health care has replaced the human connection with the distraction of technology. In a profession that has rapidly expanded, aiding the learner to connect with the “soul” of nursing is essential for our society.
As a society, we need to restore the art of nursing to its purest form through compassion and the opportunity for nurses to be able to be present and share the vulnerable moments with our patients and families within acute health care. This bill is a small step in regaining that need, and stopping the McDonaldization of health care.
This is written by an RN who is currently working at the bedside in Acute Care.
Emma Dragon – RN, BSN, MEDM, CEN, EMT-B
Hadley