Essay Sample on the Challenges Facing Nurses Today

Introduction

Nurses today are faced by various challenges, and there is a need for ways of overcoming the setbacks. Problems facing nurses affect the safety and quality of patient care. The issues encountered by caregivers range from social, financial, social, to ethical. Knowledge of these challenges leads to suitable solutions for improved healthcare services. The three identified challenges encountered by nurses for discussion in this paper with their respective solutions include a shortage of staff, low compensation, and an unsafe working environment.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Shortage of staff is one of the challenges facing nurses today, and it involves having more patients under the care of a few caregivers. The scenario leads to a higher nurse: patient ratio resulting in apportioning less time when attending to patients (Donkor & Andrews, 2015). Patient load forces contribute to deteriorating patient outcome. Therefore, because of staff shortages, nurses are unable to deliver high quality and safe healthcare services.

The other challenge facing nurses is low compensation. Nurses are amongst the less paid professionals in the world. Low compensation affects healthcare service delivery because of inadequate motivation (Saleh, Mahran, & Taher, 2017). Nurses struggle to pay their bills because of low compensation. Financial frustration affects the concentration of nurses at the place of work. The caregivers become vulnerable to making errors in the course of providing patient care. Low compensation not only demoralizes nurses, but it makes them be stressed leading to increased changes for errors in healthcare.

Apart from a shortage of staff and low compensation, the unsafe working environment is the other challenge facing nurses. Nurses are at high risk of having occupational health hazards because of the risks associated with nursing practice (Donkor & Andrews, 2015). A working environment with physical, chemical, and biological hazards puts nurses at risk to occupational health danger. Unsafe workplace affects the wellbeing of caregivers as well as affecting their job satisfaction.

Each identified challenge facing nurses has its particular solution. First, overcoming the problem of the shortage of nurses is by the recruitment of more nurses. The hiring of more nurses begins with increasing the enrolment of students to pursue nursing course (Saleh et al., 2017). The recruitment of more nurses will reduce the patient load to nurses. The caregiver will have enough time to handle patient needs. Having more nurses will ultimately lead to a positive patient outcome because nurses will have enough time to deliver care.

On the other hand, the challenge of low compensation can get overcome by implementing pay rise policies. Increasing the salaries for caregiver will lead to their motivation in their work (Donkor & Andrews, 2015). Through increased compensation, nurses will also be financially stable to pay their bills and take care of their families. As a result, stresses related to financial needs will reduce, and practitioners will concentrate on the delivery of patient care.

Like the shortage of staff and low compensation, an unsafe working condition also has a solution. Overcoming the issue of the unsafe workplace is by ensuring compliance with occupational and health safety standards. Healthcare organizations and the government ought to make sure that patient care occurs in a safe and healthy environment through compliance with the set regulations and standards (Saleh et al., 2017). Safe and healthy workplace reduces the risk of developing occupational hazards by nurses.

Conclusion

Conclusively, knowledge of the challenges faced by nurses leads to suitable solutions for improved healthcare services. Shortage of staff is one of the challenges facing nurses today, and it involves having more patients under the care of a few caregivers. The other problem facing nurses is low compensation. Lastly, the unsafe working environment is another challenge facing nurses. Though the challenges facing nurses exit, there are ways of overcoming each one of them. First, the problem of shortage of nurses can get solved by the recruitment of more caregivers. The challenge of low compensation, on the other hand, can be overcome by implementing pay rise policies. Finally, overcoming the issue of the unsafe workplace is by ensuring compliance with occupational and health safety standards. Therefore, safe and quality healthcare requires appropriate solutions to challenges facing nurses today.

References

Donkor, N., & Andrews, L. (2015). 21st century nursing practice in Ghana: challenges and opportunities. International Nursing Review, 58(2), 218-224. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-7657.2010.00856.x

Saleh, N., Mahran, G., & Taher, A. (2017). Challenges and work crisis facing critical care nurses. Nursing Journal, 14(3), 235. doi: 10.4103/enj.enj_27_17