Nurse Shortage

Nurse Shortage
The current economical evolution that is going on in the world today has resulted to shortage of
employees in the major health institutions as it has resulted to the shortage of nurses and
physicians in the world over.
It is estimated that the big cities i.e. United States of America, will experience a shortage of
approximately 760,000 nurses. The figures include the physicians and specialists by the year
2020 (Roman, 2008). And the number is expected to increase depending on the economy of the
country at that time. This is an alarming aspect that will have negative effects on the health
sector.
According to prescribed international standards of patient care there should be fifteen nurses for
every single doctor. In contrast in Pakistan there is only one nurse available for eight doctors and
in some areas this ratio is much low. And even this small number of sanctioned seats for nurses is
not fully occupied.
Punjab is the richest province in Pakistan, so its status can highlight the shortage of Nurses in
Pakistan. A survey published in Punjab, where there are currently 1,233 vacant positions of
nurses in district and tehsil hospitals as well as rural health centers. Another 2,235 nurses are
required to bring the strength at par with the Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS),
which call for having at least one nurse for eight patient beds, one charge nurse for two Intensive
Care Unit beds and eight charge nurses for four Coronary Care Unit beds.

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In an interview published the Express Tribute, June 24th, 2011, Kausar Parveen, who is principal
of the College of Nursing at Allama Iqbal Medical College, criticized the government, saying it
was not taking any steps to hire more nurses and was stopping the promotion of nurses.
She said that five seats of grade 20 nurses have been lying vacant for 10 years and the 7,035
nurses serving in Punjab hostels are only one fifth of the actually strength required to meet
patient requirements.
Jamal (2008) examined the relationship of job stress and burnout level and job satisfaction in two
developing countries such as Pakistan and Malaysia. After using regression analysis the author
revealed the significant relationship between the job stress and job burnout with job
satisfaction.

The major complain which arise by senior nurses is that nurses work extremely long hours and
have to attend to as many as 30 patients at a time which affects their performance.
According to the Book of Pakistan National Forum on Women Health most of the nurses
belong to under privileged families. They take admission in schools in order to gain expertise in
nursing and midwifery, enhance their academic qualifications, play their role in the society, gain
jobs after the training or work in the community and assist their families by earning.
However, they face several hurdles as nursing is not considered a proper profession by the family
and community members. Further more due to unavailability of the production of Ph D in the
programme, and no authorized university is offering PhD programme in Pakistan. Furthermore
people avoid coming into the field as the field is considered having low social status. I have
witnessed too many qualified nurses introducing themselves as doctors or other concerns, but
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they do not proudly introduced themselves as nurse. Why is this so? It is due to lack of
awareness of laymen of the society about male nurses and due to lack of visionary leadership,
though we have leaders but so called they are occupying the seats just having and utilizing the
personal relationships with higher authorities. I can say that this is the main reason nursing is not
considered fully developed profession, thus it is not introduced in high profile meetings and
policy making that causes reluctance of people jumping into the nursing field. Another reason of
the shortage of the nurse could be that there is no any specific office for the highly qualified
nurse as we can say that if a person has completed his or her master in nursing but yet he/she
could not find a charming or authoritative seat in hospital site, especially in government setup. In
government setups master degree holders and diploma holders are working simultaneously in the
same ward, in same post with the same salary.
Healthcare delivery system of Pakistan faces difficulties editing and coding of the data was done.
The data was in addressing the health problems of a large population entered to SPSS version 16.
Results were given in the due to mismatch between inadequate health personnel form of
descriptive statistics and charts. and the prevailing health needs. Statistics show that the need for
nurses will increase in years to come and that the demand for nurses has become greater than
ever Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital has a total strength of 80 before.
There are several other reasons that have resulted to the shortage of nurses in our medical
facilities; one of these reasons includes job stress related to the job in question. This job stress
includes the use of shifts, deaths of their patients, conflict amongst themselves and the physician,
workload, lack of support, in appropriate emotions to deal with the patients and uncertainty
concerning treatment

Nurse Shortage
The other cause for the shortage is the poor salaries and benefits package of the nurses, the
present pay they receive is very in appropriate and isn't equivalent to what they do in there work
place. The low pay demoralizes the nurses more and they opt to quit their jobs and try to go
abroad to earn more. The numbers of the nurses is also dropping because most of the students
don't want to enroll for nursing classes and they opt to take other technical courses due to nursing
image in our county. This makes them leave nursing field.
The tutors of the nurses aren't given the appropriate pay that encourages them to perform there
duties efficiently, in that this has resulted to the shortage of the highly qualified teachers that will
train the nurses.
The shortage of nurses in will have very many negative results; one main issue includes the easy
transmission of diseases from one patient to the other. This is as a result of the lack of proper
care by the nurses and at the same time there will be poor diagnosis of the diseases. The shortage
of the nurses will also result to the sudden death of patients with diseases that can be easily be
treated and also subject the patients to more pain while in hospital because of the lack of care
from the nurses (Smith, 2010). It will also result to sidelining of some patients in the medical
institutions thus making them left behind as the limited numbers of the nurses will not be
sufficient to serve all of them.
The best way of solving this shortage of nurses is through the use of improving the working
conditions of the nurses (McKinnon, 2007). This is where the government invests more in
providing the nurses with the appropriate equipments; that will be used in their duties this
includes gloves another materials that they really need in order to conduct their duties effectively.

Nurse Shortage
If the nurses and midwives are given respect and reasonable salaries and fringe benefits, the
health status of people especially mothers and child can improve.
The problem may be resolved in the way that offices in hospital sides for masters of nursing
should bee encouraged and specified, general nursing awareness programme may be conducted
in communities to enhance the knowledge of uneducated or laymen people. It is also the duty of
the government it should take serious measures to promote the programme i.e. Higher Nursing
education in government setups in all provinces, the attraction of the people may be increased
by introducing handsome salary and permanent shifts for duties, further more merit system
should be focused and fine and fair recruitment should be emphasized.
The government should also increase the pay that they receive thus motivating them thus making
them become interested in there work and reduce the numbers of the nurses who shift to other
professions (Smith, 2010). The government should also increase the numbers of students taking
the nursing courses this is by encouraging them and offering them with incentives and guarantees
of a better pay and fast employment.
There should be two or one representative of nurses in the assembly to raise the important issue
regarding nursing profession through proper forum. The nurse leaders should be involve in
policy making decisions. I can say that Nursing is parallel profession to medical profession so
the nurses should have the same rights as doctors have. In addition the nurse practitioner concept
should be introduced in Pakistan to enhance the status of the profession, which will lead to
attraction of people towards nursing and the problem of nurses shortage will be resolve. The
government should also allow the nursing/health authorities to occupy the vacant seats through
merit system. Apart from that government should take some serious measurements to attract the
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young nurses who are migrating to abroad for earning, instead if they serve their own country, it
will improve the number of nurses in Pakistan.

References:

Nurse Shortage
Jamal, M. (2008). Burnout among Employees of a Multinational Corporation in Malaysia
and Pakistan: An Empirical Investigation. International Management Review, 4(1), 60-70.
Hood L.J (2010) Leddy & Peppers Conceptual Bases of Nursing (7th.ed).Lippincot
Williams & Wilkins London.
Seir F. Development of nursing human resource in Pakistan. Pak J Pathol 2006; 17(2):
70-73.
Parveen, K (June 24th, 2011) Express Tribute, June pp 4