Supporting Our Nurses
Nursing is a developing field, and it takes a certain kind of individual to handle it. It is demanding and is not an easy job. The work may be unglamorous and exhausting, but it is profoundly gratifying. As a nurse, you hold patients’ lives in your hands and make a real difference. It requires long hours and vast knowledge. Though, can the job be too demanding? Some nurses do not receive an opportunity to stop and take a break during their long twelve-hour shifts, whether it is to rest or to eat a meal. Existing nurse-to-patient ratios in Arizona do not permit nurses to provide the best patient care. Studies show that working multiple twelve-hour shifts in a row causes fatigue in individuals. With how demanding it is, one would assume that hospital management would support nurses. Nurses are being treated unethically, overworked, and underappreciated by hospitals. They need help, and there is a solution.
Today, nurses are required to take on more patients than they can handle. Both nurse and patient would be provided with more considerable advantages with lowering the number of patients a nurse is to care for during their shift. Without reducing the patient ratio, patients are at a higher risk for medical errors and infections. It is reported that “An estimated 400,000 deaths and 2 to 4 million nonlethal serious medical events per year are due to healthcare provider errors” (Work-induced fatigue). How do we expect a nurse to be able to properly perform their job if they have too many patients to care for? Lowering this number is a huge must. Keeping nurse to patient ratio down will permit nurses to attend to their patients more effective and affectingly. Statistics show that for every patient over four assigned to one nurse in a medical-surgical unit could increase mortality by 7% per patient (Work-induced fatigue). There are other issues as well; some nurses who are not able to take a break to eat or even use a bathroom. It would become difficult to do a good job with a hungry stomach and a full bladder. We have no laws against in Arizona from stopping this high nurse to patient ratio, but to keep our families safe, we must make a change
Reliable tests have been performed to prove fatigued in overworked nurses. Blank test multiple nurses working a single twelve-hour shift vs. nurse working three twelve-hour shifts within three days. Nurses working multiple twelve-hour shifts in a row showed a significant decline in reaction time and lapses of attention. It slows their movements and thinking patterns a considerate amount, making it a higher chance for mistakes. This can be very dangerous, especially for the patients that they are caring for. When working in the medical field, a small accident can have significant consequences. A minor mistake could potentially mean a patient’s life. Many of these studies had been done within one week. One could only imagine the results scientists would find from nurses working cumulative twelve-hour shifts in a row for weeks, months, or even years. There need to be regulations, but in place that allows nurses to work no more than one twelve-hour shift in a forty-eight-hour period. This will keep nurses safe from work-induced fatigued.
Our nurses need someone to stand up for them, and a nursing union is just that. Nursing unions have acted to make better working environments for nurses and safe patient care. A nursing union is an organization that makes choices about circumstances involving their work. Nursing unions try to give nurses ethical treatment in their workplace. Nursing unions strive to provide nurses a voice at work, better pay, and improved benefits. A firm contract between the union and hospital helps ensure that patients receive the best possible care. It is essential because, at one time or another, we have been to a hospital or had a loved one in a hospital. We want nurses to be able to give our loved ones and us the best care they can provide for us. It is hard for an individual, such as a nurse, to be able to provide top care if they are not being treated with care first. Bring in and supporting a nursing union will bring much-needed attention to nurses. They would be protected from being forced to work many hours day after day. They will also be given proper nurse to patient ratios.
An inside source stated a group represented by the nursing union came to Saint Joseph Hospital to persuade nurses to unionize. When word first came around about voting for a union, they tried to convince employees not to unionize. While it is legal for the hospital to persuade its employees not to unionize, it is illegal for them to threaten their employees to prevent them from joining. Illegal or not, this did not stop them. Shannon King, a registered nurse at St. Joseph Hospital, states, “Management threaten all of the nurses, if there was any talk about forming a union, that they would fire those individuals.” Though the hospital never fired nurses for those exact reasons, they would find other reasons to terminate them. King states, “They fired those nurses because they supported the union and wanted a change. They found any reasons to fire those women, but the rest of us knew the real reason why they were fired.” In the end, it was a wasted scare tacked, the majority vote won, and the hospital was unionized. St. Joseph Hospital was the first hospital in Arizona to be unionized.
On September 20, 2019, Arizona had its first-ever registered nurse strike. The hospitals involved were St. Joseph’s Hospital and St. Mary’s, located in Tucson, AZ. The 24-hour strike also included hospitals from California, Florida, and Illinois. Thousands of nurses went on strike that day. Their goal was to push for better patient care by demanding better work conditions and better pay, states Yajaira Roman, a nurse, and a member of the union. Many nurses went on strike. King says, “The hospitals tried to bribe many of us (nurses) not to strike. They had paid nurses from Phoenix to come down to Tucson on buses. They paid those nurses thousands of dollars to work. When usually the hospital would staff the nurse with an 8-10 nurse to patience ratio, when the nurses went on strike, the hospital staff the hospital with nurse staff with a 2-3 patience ratio. Just so, there would not be a commotion while the nurses are on strike”.
There is a chance that a nursing union will not resolve all the problems that our nurses face. A nursing union is only as strong as the contact that they have with the hospital. Without the support and cooperation from the hospital, the union will not be able to provide regulations to protect our nurses. Without support from the hospital, it will undoubtably lead the nurses into a strike. As a result, this will shorten our hospitals of nurses. Which is already a severe problem America is already facing. Some arguments made against nursing unions are that it will cost the hospitals too much money. I agree it could cost the hospital money, but a nurse’s health and overall well-being are more important than a budget. Having a strong union will help keep nurses healthy, and in return, they keep patients safe.
We need to support and take care of our nurses, so they will be able to take care of our loved ones properly.
Work Cited
Thompson BJ (2019) Does work-induced fatigue accumulate across three compressed 12 hour shifts in hospital nurses and aides? PLoS ONE 14(2): e0211715. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/ journal.pone.0211715
Ortiz, Aimee. “Nurses in Four States Go on Strike in Protest Over Patient Numbers.” The New York Times, 2019, p. A19. EBSCOhost, 0 search.ebscohost.com.library2.pima.edu/login aspx?direct = true&db =edsgov&AN=edsgcl.600247938&site=eds-live&scope=site.
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