Thousands of nurses are abandoning their once highly regarded profession. The exodus is aggravating a nationwide shortage of nurses and compromising patient care in many health care facilities nationwide.
Many nurses openly say they are demoralized. They complain of low pay, long hours, large patient loads and being treated condescendingly.
Hospitals are struggling to keep nurses at bedside and find new recruits. But services are quietly being reduced or restructured for lack of workers.
Sunday:
Burned-out nurses leave in droves as patient care suffers.
Monday:
Improved working conditions is key to attracting and retaining nurses.
Patient help
Complaints about nursing care or staffing can be made to the Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations at (800) 994-6610 or online at
http://www.jcaho.org/
compl_frm.html or with the Michigan Consumer & Industry Services, Bureau of Health Services, Complaint and Allegation Division, P.O. Box 30670, Lansing, Mich. 48909-9196 or call (517)373-8170.
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© Copyright The Detroit News.
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Sunday, November 18, 2001
Photos by Alan Lessig / The Detroit News
Emily Minard of the Visiting Nurses Association checks patient Sherry Kurtiz in Kurtiz's home. "The most frustrating part was not giving care I thought the patients needed," Minard said of working in hospitals.
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- Stressed nurses quit, hurting patient care
- Poor pay, conditions leave hospitals strapped for help
- Not enough help, patient says
- ‘I wasn’t getting any care’ claims woman treated in Macomb
- Family blames Beaumont death on inadequate staffing
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- Weary nurses find jobs, joy in other professions
- Many turn to related, but calmer line of work
- RN shortage worse than past deficits
- Deeper, longer-lasting crisis a result of changes in demographics, work place
- Shortage may top 300,000 by 2020
- Defections and more part-timers cause the growing gap
Monday, November 19, 2001
Photo by Alan Lessig / The Detroit News
Elnora Spencer has worked in the critical care unit at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit for 10 years. She says nurses there have the shifts they need to make their lives work. “I love my job, I really do,” says Spencer.
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- Nurses’ Rx: More pay, less stress
- Better conditions needed to attract, retain RNs
- Nursing schools toughen programs
- New standards may worsen RN shortage
- Nurses seek union's clout to gain benefits and voice
- Dissatisfied with working conditions, RNs take new view of collective bargaining
- RNs say pay not enough for job’s demands
- They press hospitals to bill separately for services
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