The trip downstairs will put Perry an hour and a half behind with charting and assessments, but patients leaving the Neuroscience Unit must always be accompanied by their nurse or doctor so vital signs never go unchecked. Another nurse covers for Perry while she is gone, but this nurse also has six patients of her own. The state, like most others in the country, is experiencing a nursing shortage, a situation that keeps nurses like Perry in high demand and hospital administrators playing catch-up to fill vacant positions so patient care doesn't suffer. Other nurses, particularly at night, have had as many as 10 patients to care for, she said. It all seems cyclical.
Experts say the nursing shortage is a result of many factors.
Fewer younger women have entered the profession in the last two decades because they have gone into other fields. And in comparison to many other job opportunities available to women today, nursing pay is relatively low and often hard and unforgiving work, research says. Nevertheless, being a nurse is all Perry ever wanted to be. Her mother was a nurse, and her father a lab technician. Medical terminology was almost always peppered into supper-time conversation, she said.