Influence from other practicing nurses- perception and wrong advice
With the information circulating in the media and from some nurse professionals, new recruits have shunned away from enrolling in nursing schools because of the fear they have regarding the information given. Fox (2009) points out that 17% of nurses in Australia enrolled for other careers even after undertaking a full nursing course as required by their respective nursing councils. The rationale behind this movement is search for good remunerations, and frustrations from the nursing profession among others.
Lack of full support from the government and other stakeholders
Admittedly, the nursing profession usually enjoys limited support from governments and other stakeholders in various economies. Ivanov and Blue (2008) elucidate that some governments, like in Canada have offered a “plain field” environment of nursing and other professions in terms of scholarships, job recruitments, training and job promotions. Since nursing field seem to be unstable in terms of management and practice, many opt for alternative careers or seeks jobs in the private sector.
Shortage of skilled Nurses: Shortage of skilled nurses is the major cause of problems in the nursing, healthcare provision. Lack of enough knowledge, skills, and information is also reported being a major factor. This is because the field of nursing and health is dynamic and requires timely update of the nursing curriculum (Strelioff, 1999). The practicing nurses lack adequate education to deal with emerging health issues and cases; hence affecting patient care. This creates a dent in the supply-demand curve, where the supply is much less than demand.
Barriers to the resolution of nursing research
Research highlights training deficiencies in institutions. Continuously declining rates of enrolment of student trainees and educators has proved fatal for the health sector. Over the recent years, admissions into the nursing colleges have declined.
The US Congress (2001) reported that nursing schools and colleges have declined to admit qualified applicants on the basis that they do not have enough nursing trainers. To be exact, nursing colleges and universities declined to admit 32,617 qualified students because of the shortage of trainers. Reports have concluded that there is the need for the United States to graduate more than 90 percent of the nurses getting into the nursing training.
Another point accrues from the issue of aging nurses. Youths have lost interest in the nursing profession due to its challenges and better benefits in other fields. This has led to a sharp rise in the average age of registered nurses, which is between 46 and 56 in United States of America (Buerhaus, Staiger & Auerbach, 2004). This means that half of the registered nurses will likely reach their retirement age and create a surge in the profession.
Poor funding prioritization has also been reported to be a leading cause of the woes in the profession. Insufficiency of funds has hindered staffing of hospitals and other healthcare facilities (Ivanov, L. L., & Blue, C. L. (2008). It has also led to low salaries for the registered nurses, lack of work privileges and incentives as in other professions, which affects their living standards. This leads to professionals reviewing their choice of careers.
Poor working conditions in the field have also played a massive role in creating the surge in the field. Some nurses describe the conditions as horrible (US Congress, 2001). The amount of work is a lot leading to exaggerated patient to nurse ratios. Increasing health challenges have led to increase in the nursing workload due to nurses running away from the field (Aiken, et. al, 2002). The fact that there is no guarantee of compensation for the extra work makes the profession more demoralizing (Sobon-Sensor, 2012). Most nurses have even uttered that they do not see themselves in the field of nursing for long; they would rather seek options in other professions. They assert that the working conditions do not allow them to put in extra efforts, and this makes the field less favorite.
In summary, the pertinent causes of the nursing dearth include methodologies that the trainers use in training, a review of the relevance and scope of the nursing training curriculum, staffing models that hospitals and employment authority’s use, retention efforts for the registered nurses (Cohen & Sherrod, 2003), and increasing the revenue that governments allocate to the relevant ministries in healthcare.
Best practices related to nursing shortage
Lintern (2012) reports that the major causes of nursing shortages accrue from human prioritization errors. The decisions that authorities make in the field of nursing lead to deficits of various. Here are some of the recommendations and alternatives that will help in deal