Addressing the Issue of Shortage of Nurses

Running head: ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 1
Addressing the Issue of Shortage of Nurses
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 2
Addressing the Issue of Shortage of Nurses
Identification and description of the competing needs to the proposed issue in the
organization
The competing needs that affect the healthcare issue of the shortage of nurses include
the need for patients to receive quality care when they visit the hospital and the need for the
organization at large to perform effectively. Shortage of nurses negatively affects the quality
of care delivered to the patients. Normally the nurse to patient ratio is 1:2 where one nurse is
supposed to care for not more than two patients (Coventry, Maslin‐Prothero & Smith,
2015). However, due to the issue of shortage of nurses in a healthcare organization, this ratio
is affected and one nurse can be assigned to care for more than 10 patients sometimes. As a
result, the quality of care delivered is affected since nurses working in this environment are
prone to make medical errors that affect the quality of care delivered (Cheng et al. , 2016).
Meanwhile, the performance of the organization at large is also affected by the issue of a
shortage of nurses. This is so because some sensitive departments in the healthcare
organizations will have to be closed because there are no nurses to work in those
departments. This will negatively affect the performance of the healthcare organization.
Description of relevant policy in the organization that influences the issue
There is a policy in our organization that requires nurses to serve more than 40 hours
a week. This policy may influence the issue of shortage of nurses in the organization because
nurses are forced to work for a long time without a rest. This subjects the nurses to
occupational stress and since most nurses cannot work in this environment, they will prefer
quitting to work for another organization that provides better working environments for them.

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 3
The critic of the policy described above
The origin of this policy in our organization was based on ethical consideration. This
is so because, in the past, many patients were complaining of not receiving adequate attention
from the nurses that were assigned to care for them in the healthcare organization. For that
reason, this policy was put into effect to guarantee adequate attention and quality service for
all the patients in the organization. One of the strengths of this policy is that it helped
eliminate the patients complains of not being attended to. However, many challenges are
facing this policy. For example, it has resulted in high turnover in the organization. This is so
because working for long hours without a rest is known to subject employees to occupational
stress where they cannot effectively perform their duties (Moreland & Apker, 2016). Since
most of the nurses are not comfortable working in this environment the organization has seen
many nurses resign from their jobs. As a result of this challenge, it’s evident that the results
of this policy are not promoting ethical behavior at work. Ethically, nurses are supposed to
work a total of 36 hours (American Nurse Association, 2015). Since the policy requires
the nurses to work for more than 40 hours a week, it's justifiable to say that it does not
promote ethical behavior. Also, for quality delivery of healthcare, ethics dictate that a nurse
must be well both physically, mentally and spiritually (Lubbe & Roets, 2014). By working
many hours as required by the policy, nurses are subjected to occupational stress which is not
good for their health.
A discussion of the policy recommended
The policy I recommend to balance the competing needs of resources in the
organization is the hiring of many qualified nurses. Hiring more qualified nurses will help
balance the competing needs of resources, workers and patients that the current policy has not
been able to address. This is so because by hiring many qualified nurses, the need to deliver