Essay: Overworked Medical and Hospital Staff and Its Impact

This essay delves into the critical issue of overworked medical and hospital staff, examining the various factors contributing to this problem. It highlights the crucial roles of doctors, nurses, and support staff in hospital efficiency and the administrative burdens they often face. The essay then explores the concepts of human dignity and common good, demonstrating how these are often compromised by excessive workloads. It emphasizes the importance of advocacy in nursing, outlining the actions nurses can take to support patients and address systemic issues. Furthermore, the essay provides examples of how NGOs and government bodies can help alleviate staff workload and improve healthcare outcomes. The conclusion underscores the detrimental effects of overwork on patient health and hospital structure, while reinforcing the need for advocacy and the positive impact of NGO involvement.

Running head: OVER WORKED MEDICAL AND HOSPITAL STAFF
OVER WORKED MEDICAL AND HOSPITAL STAFF
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Introduction
Hospital and medical staffs plays an important role in running a hospital efficiently.
Several hospital staffs running the hospital include doctors, nurses, support staff and other
health professionals. Medical staff professionals maintain the information of physicians
working in that hospital and in addition are also responsible in coordinating credentialing
processes. They also have to perform some administrative duties in order to decrease the load
of the management (Parand, Dopson, Renz & Vincent, 2014). Hospital staffs sometimes have
to suffer from a lot of stress due to increased amount of work they have to perform each day.
In some days the work becomes burdensome. Hence, this essay mainly focuses on overload
of work for hospital and medical staff. It then describes human dignity and common good and
how they are missing in this above problem. It also summarizes nurses’ role that should be
enacted in order to achieve advocacy. It also provides the reader with an example from a
NGO or any Government body which will help in diminishing the workload of the staffs
working in the hospital and how advocacy can be achieved by the nurses.
Human dignity
Human dignity is referred to any individual’s insight of self- respect and self-worth in
order to achieve psychological empowerment (Andorno, 2014). Human dignity is a part of
education that is inherited to every individual. No one can teach human dignity to others.
This is a conscious sense that enables an individual to feel that they too deserve respect and
honour from other individuals. It is an ideal and valuable right for every human (James,
2014). The health care professionals and hospital staffs have to face numerous psychological
stressors. They are always tensed due to work overload in the hospitals and their incapability
in completing all the work in the précised time. Furthermore, hospital staffs lack dignity. In
this profession, no one is there to help them or even share the tasks so that no staff gets

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irritated and feels pressurised with so many tasks. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), “a healthy workplace is one in which workers and managers
collaborate to use a continual improvement process to protect and promote the health, safety
and well-being of all workers and the sustainability of workplace” (Portoghese, 2014). The
hospitals staffs and the medical staffs are humans too. They also need some free time for
themselves. If they are overloaded with work or stressed out, then they will not be able to
take care of the hospitals. For example, nurses providing care to the patients daily sometimes
are stressed due to overwork, so it is an unrealistic expectation from the hospital management
that nurses have to deal with their stress as well as provide to their patient (Shine, 2017). The
management lacks the basic dignity to understand the issues of the medical staff that they are
stressed out due to too much work load.
Common good
Common good is referred to be a very distinct idea in the repository of Catholic social
theory. It serves as a reminder to the patients as well as the health care providers regarding
the social nature of hospitals and other healthcare systems. It is a concept which analyses
moral and ethical problems that affects care. However the idea of common good is not
utilised in the hospital as they provide a lot of pressure to their staffs ( Peña-López, 2015).
According to Tei-Tominaga & Nakanishi (2018) it has been proven that over working hours
and workload develops many health risks for the hospital staffs. Sometimes, the nursing
staffs also suffer from many ethical problems regarding care of their patient due to handling a
lot of patient at the same time. Hence, overwork of the hospital and medical staff cannot
portray the concept of common good.

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Advocacy
Advocacy is defined to as an individual action whose main objective is to influence
decisions within political, economic or social institutions. It is important in nursing practice
in order to summarise the nurse-client relationship (Altin et al., 2015). In order to achieve
advocacy, nurses should provide required services which are knowledgeable. They can also
achieve it by communicating with their patients. They should be able to communicate with
their patients not only regarding their health but also about external affairs in order to make
their patient comfortable. Advocacy helps in building patient-nurse relationship. Nurses have
to take care of the patients all the time. They have to be with them until the patient’ get
discharged from the hospital (Hanks, 2013). In the hospital nurses should be patients’ first
friend. They should feel comfortable in sharing their problems with their nurses knowing it
that only they can solve it and will help them. They should be able to ensure their patients
that they are safe in the hospital and should also listen to patients every word. Patients have
the right to have a word regarding their treatment procedure. Nurses should give them that
right and should listen and analyse the care plan patient is suggesting. In fact nurse should
also communicate with the patient’s family members if they disagree with the patient’s care
plan and make them understand that this could affect their patient. Nurses should also educate
their patient about managing their present condition in order to improve the quality of their
life. They should also inform patient about the care plan the doctor has advised them and the
medications they have prescribed. Patients’ should have all the knowledge regarding their
treatment procedure. Mistakes can be done by anyone irrespective of the profession.
Sometimes situation arises, when the physician dos a mistake or prescribes the wrong
medicine. At this time, nurses should have the guts to talk to the physician about the mistake
so that they can correct it in order to help the patient recover faster (Kalaitzidis & Jewell,
2015). NGO’s play a major role in strengthening any health care system, which helps in

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decreasing the workload of the hospital or medical staffs. According to the study Singer &
Vogus (2013), it is noted that association of NGO’s or government body in the hospitals or
any healthcare systems have have enabled the hospital to perform better and decrease the
workload of the present staffs.
Conclusion
Overwork of the hospital and nursing staffs have only lead to deterioration of
patients’ health and in turn affects the hospital’s structure. Human dignity and common good
are missing among the staffs who are loaded with overwork. Moreover, it also concludes that
advocacy is an important parameter that is needed to be introduced in the nursing practice
and incorporation of NGO’s have proven to provide better results and decreases the
workload of the present staffs.

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References
Altin, S., Passon, A., Kautz-Freimuth, S., Berger, B., & Stock, S. (2015). A qualitative study
on barriers to evidence-based practice in patient counseling and advocacy in
Germany. BMC health services research, 15(1), 317.
Andorno, R. (2014). Human dignity and human rights. Handbook of Global Bioethics, 45-57
Hanks, R. G. (2013). Social advocacy: A call for nursing action. Pastoral Psychology, 62(2),
163-173.
James, S. (2014). Human Rights. The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, 1725-1734..
Kalaitzidis, E., & Jewell, P. (2015). The concept of advocacy in nursing: a critical
analysis. The health care manager, 34(4), 308-315.
Parand, A., Dopson, S., Renz, A., & Vincent, C. (2014). The role of hospital managers in
quality and patient safety: a systematic review. BMJ open, 4(9), e005055.
Peña-López, I. (2015). Rethinking Education. Towards a global common good?.
Portoghese, I., Galletta, M., Coppola, R. C., Finco, G., & Campagna, M. (2014). Burnout and
workload among health care workers: the moderating role of job control. Safety and
health at work, 5(3), 152-157.
Shine, S. (2017). Review of literature about occupational stress among nurses. International
Journal of Innovative Research and Advanced Studies, 4(2).
Singer, S. J., & Vogus, T. J. (2013). Reducing hospital errors: interventions that build safety
culture. Annual review of public health, 34, 373-396.

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Tei-Tominaga, M., & Nakanishi, M. (2018). The influence of supportive and ethical work
environments on work-related accidents, injuries, and serious psychological distress
among hospital nurses. International journal of environmental research and public
health, 15(2), 240.