Nurses & worries about replacement.
A short and sweet newsletter...
Hi All,
This newsletter mostly includes a column I wrote on the question of nurses being replaced by non-nurses as a response to the nurse staffing shortage. I have heard nurses express this concern. Read the column below in Cancer Nursing Today to learn more. As the first paragraph says, I did end up writing about this issue for them based on a Twitter exchange. Who says social media is all bad?
One clarification about the ongoing crisis in nurse staffing. I and other people have been describing the situation as a “nursing shortage,” but actually here in the U.S. we have a shortage of nurses willing to do direct patient care. This “shortage” should thus more accurately be called a “nurse staffing shortage” (as I say in the paragraph above) or as a “nurse vacancy crisis.” The bottom line is that there are more frontline nursing jobs available than there are nurses who will do them. And why? You probably know the answer, but read the column for further elaboration.
Family news.
Arthur and I will be away next week celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary in Chincoteague, VA. Readers of HEALING know that Chincoteague features importantly in the last chapter of the book. Thirty years of marriage feels like a true milestone and something worth celebrating in a place I’ve loved since childhood!
Also, my daughter Sophia is moving to Indianapolis to begin a job as a geologist. I will miss her and am so proud of her. The company she’s working for is international and the job may take her all over the country and all over the world. I find it so wonderful that she loves rocks and has turned that love into a career.
Here’s the column.
Opinion: Don't Worry, Nurses Won't Be Replaced Anytime Soon
If you’re a nurse or work in health care, it’s impossible not to know there’s an ongoing and severe nurse staffing shortage. A few weeks ago, I was part of a Twitter thread where the question of nurses being replaced with non-nurses or “unlicensed personnel” came up as a relatively inexpensive way hospitals might try to solve the crisis in nurse hiring. It’s a worry I’ve heard expressed before and one I’ve worried about myself. Real solutions to the staffing crisis are well-known: increased salaries, safe-staffing, protection from assault, and elimination of racism and sexism. Yet hospitals, focused on keeping down labor costs, seem intent on finding any other way to solve the problem. The “replacement” concern warrants discussion, not so much because it may happen soon, but for what it reveals about how little nurses feel their work is valued by our profit-hungry health care system.
Before exploring the worry about replacement, it’s important to understand the scope of the nurse staffing shortage. One interesting way to do that is to observe the number of working nurses per every 1000 US citizens. The number of nurses on the job in the US increased from 10-12 per 1000 citizens from 2000-2019, but by August 2022, post-Covid, dropped to 9 per 1000. At the same time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a need for an additional 195,400 nurses from 2021-2031. What’s most worrisome about these numbers is that the personnel losses and needs are increasing simultaneously.
Read the rest of the column here.
If you want to leave a comment, please do. I know it’s awkward to have to toggle over to the column and then come back here, but I am interested your thoughts and opinions.
It has been a strange couple of weeks, with Canadian wildfires sending huge amounts of particulate matter down the Eastern Seaboard, and the Federal indictment of an ex-President. As much as possible I’m still trying to hold onto my childhood idea of summer—summertime, and the livin’ is easy…
Hugs to all of you!
Theresa
About 2003 I remember our senior director said they wanted to look at using a nurse as a patient care coordinator for 2-3 operating rooms. The OR itself would have non nurses doing the care. Thankfully, it went nowhere. With regard to nurses quiet quiting or not wanting to return to direct patient care, this will never improve as long as nursing management is unrestrained in its retaliatory actions against staff nursing. Amnesty International, TANA and ICN have called for regulatory reform. But, nursing elite control the narrative. They will not self regulate and will not give up this power. So, the culture allows for immunity calling what is clearly misconduct, an employment issue. And we all know HR works for administration, not the employees. Thus, the only recourse is legal action. Nurses do not have $25,000 to retain an attorney. Much less battle a hospitals deep pockets. This leads to helplessness against the system. There are no watchdogs for the nursing front line except grassroots small organizations. The media has failed nursing and so has so called professional organizations. Unions have their decades old playbook and will not champion regulatory reform, either.
Thanks, Theresa for writing back. I wish I could write like you. I mean it. As an oncology nurse I have followed your back when you wrote for the NY Times and thought it was so cool that they were letting you have a voice.
My story is not unique and I don't mean for anyone to feel sorry for me. I am just mourning the hope that I believe gets fizzled out so quickly within the current (10-15 years) nursing work force. I don't know what kind of seismic change we need before our country (or the world) would say enough is enough.
Thanks again for your advocacy!