NO.

CONTENT PAGE

1. Introduction 2

2. What are the consequences of the shortage of staff had at your workplace 3

3. List TWO (2) suggestions for the management to address of staff at your 5
workplace

4. Conclusion 6

5 Reference 7

1
Introduction

Nursing profession commonly facing shortage of staff problem. Nurses may find themselves
facing a skill shortage when there are not enough people with a particular time to meet their
demand. The shortage will continue to be increasingly important due to our aging population, a
lack of nursing and high turnover in the profession. The shortage is caused by an increased
demand for nurses, while fewer people are choosing nursing as a profession and the current
nurses worldwide are aging stated by Booth, R. Z. (2002).

2
What are the consequences of the shortage of staff had at your workplace?

Lack of adequate numbers of nursing staff can impact patient well-being in a number of ways.
Poor quality care is given by nurses to patient due to over workload. Normal ratio of patient and
nurse was 8:1 to achieve a good quality care for patient but nowadays ratio of patient and nurse
is 17:1 which is a nurse could not perform good and impossible to achieve her goal in a shift
debated by Ruffin-Ellis, V. (2018). Shortage of staff can lead to medication error, violence
towards patients, long hospitalization of a patient and increase mortality. Staff shortages may
also cause delays in initiating emergency interventions.

One of the consequence of the shortage of staff is burnout among nurses. The nurses who remain
in the workforce may find themselves in high demand but at a significant cost. Unmanageable
workloads are physically and mentally exhausting with no relief in sight, and job dissatisfaction
rises. There will be an increased demand for highly specialized nurses as hospital care is reserved
for only the sickest of patients. Nurses who are currently employed may find themselves needing
more education and training to compete with specially trained new graduates. Adding to the
shortage problem is the fact that nursing is still majority female, they have no time with their
family due to hectic working schedule. Some are getting divorced, some their own child can’t
recognize them. This issues can push nurses into stress and not concentrates on work.

Increased patient’s complains in nursing care is one of the consequences of nurses shortage.
Nurses failed to attend stat and immediately on patient call due to plenty of patients with
minimal number of staffs.

The most comment thing happening in current environment is nurses cannot continue their
further studies. The hospital’s management freeze nurses to continue their further studies which
may lead to critical shortage of staff. Nursing shortage being an obstacle among nurses to
achieve their goals by discontinue their further studies in degree and post basic. Nurses did not

3
upgrading their self by knowledge and studies. This causes nurses knowledge and skills are not
updated. This might lead to long hospitalization for a patient due to nurses did not exposed to
new and updated nursing care which can fasten in curing and recovering patients (Westendorf,
2007).

4
List TWO (2) suggestions for the management to address of staff at your workplace.

Higher wages

Considering the fact that demand for nurses is high with limited supply, very minimal amount of
nurses only being satisfied with their salaries. Simply paying more and offering bonuses or
allowance to those individuals who sign on to become nurses can go a long way in rectifying the
problem. For an example, travelling allowance by miles for encourage nurses from quit far
places to attend work. In other cases, we can minimise nurses from work for overseas if
management pay higher.

Recruit more nurses and restrict nurses to work in overseas.

Adding more nurses to the workforce will require a more strategic approach that goes beyond
higher pay. By restricting nurses to work in overseas might solve short staffing problem. In
other view, recruiting more fraiche nurses instead of always looking for experienced nurses and
give them more continues nursing education, frequent nursing audits to make them provide
quality care to patients (Ripple effect. 2017). 

5
Conclusion

Future shortages of nurses might not be prevented, but making improvements in interdisciplinary
teamwork, coupled with ensuring that providers and executives have greater interdisciplinary
education in improving quality and building safe environments for patients, could mitigate their
harmful impacts (Buerhaus, P. I., et al, 2017).

6
Reference

Booth, R. Z. (2002). The nursing shortage: a worldwide problem. Revista Latino-Americana De

Enfermagem, 10(3), 392–400. doi: 10.1590/s0104-11692002000300013

Buerhaus, P. I., Donelan, K., Ulrich, B. T., Norman, L., Desroches, C., & Dittus, R. (2007).
Impact Of The Nurse Shortage On Hospital Patient Care: Comparative
Perspectives. Health Affairs, 26(3), 853–862. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.26.3.853

Ripple effect. (2017). Nursing Management (Springhouse), 48(10), 1. doi:

10.1097/01.numa.0000526008.05995.99

Ruffin-Ellis, V. (2018). How does organizational culture impact RN engagement. Journal of

Nursing & Patient Care, 03. doi: 10.4172/2573-4571-c9-037

Westendorf, J. J. (2007). The Nursing Shortage. Plastic Surgical Nursing, 27(2), 93–97. doi:

10.1097/01.psn.0000278239.10835.1c