nursing shortage

nursing shortage

Or nursing home, you've probably heard them talk about how short-staffed they are.

Today, an rn with mvhs talks to us about what it's like on the inside, on the frontlines of patient care.

The days are marked by tears, frustration, and nonstop running, hoping, at the end of the day, that it was enough, as they try to do the work of five and six people....with three or four.

Here's newschannel 2's joleen ferris.

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None what could make a still-working nurse want to talk publicly about this?

Grave concerns about her, her colleagues and her patients' safety" penny sullivan is a registered nurse with mvhs, working at st luke's.

Her job has never been this challenging or difficult 32:20 "staffing is a huge huge issue right now.

In the 33 years i've been there, i have never seen it this bad" scheduling is a nightmare.

There just aren't enough bodies 32:37 "in my unit, it's a step down unit, it's an imcu, we're supposed to have a patient ratio of 3 to 4 at most and im giving out patient assignments, five, six patients to these nurses" and it's taking a toll on the frontline caregivers 34:47 "i have nurses crying almost on a daily basis.

It's really sad" 34:54 "it's every unit.

Every unit in the hospital is short staffed" 7:29 "so this is a hard time.

Mvhs chief physician executive, dr. kent hall, the problem is real and universal 1:15 "as we have tried to fill holes we've actually reached out to staffing companies things like that, one of whom said, "yeah, we have 18,000 requests that we can't fill" and so that's just one example of how difficult it is to get staffing" hall says management meets twice a day, to deal with ongoing staffing shortages...trying to plug holes, move people around, and ensure the best patient care 1:43 "what is the current staffing, where are we thin?

How can we move people around to minimize the thinness of it?"

And those front line nurses race every day to do enough....always wanting to do more 35:10 "they don't go to break, they don't go to lunch.

It's just a continual just run to try to catch up.

32:33 "we need to make some changes really quickly" jf, nc2.

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