BITTER PILL
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Bitter Pill
Nurses are pillars that ensure the safety of the patients. Their work demands for their
physical, mental and emotional competence to bring quality healthcare at its multiple levels
amongst everyone. Through the years the nursing profession became an essential part in health
care’s foundation and entails healthcare advocate, patient care and ensuring safety in various
circumstances. How come this noteworthy profession often overlooked by society?
The transition from conventional to technological period became a challenge to all the
delegates in the sector of medicine. The increasing complexity of the healthcare systems and the
work environment factors affects the quality of care provided by nurses. Work environment factors
mainly centered on workload. According to Gurses and Carayon (2008), heavy workloads among
hospital nurses are due to the low nurse-patient ratio. The growing population stipulates for more
healthcare needs and nurses are the key to fill these voids. Lack of nurses overworks those who
are currently on the job resulting in nursing job dissatisfactions. Also, the escalating matters of
elevating the cost of healthcare reduces the hospital nursing staff and to compensate for the sudden
demands, nurses are required to work overtime. Moreover, nurses have far more intensive work
because they also carry out unprofessional work. The ineffective care provided by nurses due to
heavy workloads causes patients to become frustrated with them and surges incidents of violence
among nurses in their workplace (Havaei & MacPhee, 2020).
As much as the patient is of need for attention so does nurses. One must not invalidate the
occupation; legislators must understand the work environment of nurses and implement an
effective systematic workload approach that both compensates the patients' necessity and the
nurses’ proficiency. It is the declining health care system that compels nurses to take the “bitter
pill” and continue working on a toxic environment.
BITTER PILL
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References
Carayon, P., & Gurses, A. P. (2008). Nursing workload and patient safety—a human factors
engineering perspective. In Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for
nurses. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).
Havaei, F., & MacPhee, M. (2020). The impact of heavy nurse workload and patient/family
complaints on workplace violence: An application of human factors framework. Nursing
open, 7(3), 731-741.