This in turn has a profound impact on the quality of care that staff can provide. Today almost all healthcare facilities are chronically short-staffed. This directly results in inadequate attention being given to patients, who often do not receive the care they should expect in a hospital setting. Patients are put into dangerous and oftentimes life threatening situations as acuity levels rise and staff is reduced. Regular patient bathing is not always performed when aides are not available and the nursing staff is so overworked, its attention directed to more critical problems.
Patients develop bedsores due to lack of movement and regular position changes.
Many patients, unable to feed themselves, have food brought to them but have no one to help them get it into their mouths. It is usually the healthcare worker or the housekeeping staff, rather than management, that is blamed for breakdowns in patient care. The presumption here is that poor patient care stems from workers inattention or slacking. But staffs could not be working harder than they already are. And indeed, it could be that overwork is contributing to the problems.