Only 9 percent of us are under the age of 30, compared with 25 percent in 1980. And nursing school enrollment is at an all-time low. It has become evident that current working conditions are major factors contributing to the shortage and make it even more difficult to recruit and retain nurses. Adding to the stress of caring for larger numbers of sicker patients with fewer registered nurses is the increasing use of mandatory overtime as a staffing practice. Nurses are being required to work 16 hours or more in a 24-hour period, jeopardizing both the safety and quality of care being delivered to patients and their own safety.
Patients are sicker and support systems are fewer.
Health and safety issues such as workplace violence, latex allergy, Hepatitis C, HIV, musculo-skeletal injury and surgical smoke are growing more prevalent and more serious than we have ever known. We know from the state Department of Labor and Industry that it is more dangerous to be a health-care worker than it is to be working in construction. The deteriorating working conditions and the frustration from our inability to constantly deliver safe, quality patient care are causing more and more nurses to leave the profession and bedside nursing. Clearly, the problem is not that we don't currently have enough professional nurses. The problem is that we don't have enough nurses willing to work in today's health-care environment.