B.C.nurses most often cite understaffing for poor care: Falls, infections and drug errors are a result, they say
The Vancouver Sun, December 12, 2006

More nurses in B.C. than anywhere else in Canada say inadequate staffing levels in health care settings are leading to poor or merely fair care being delivered to patients.

The National Survey of the Work and Health of Nurses, released Monday, reports that 17.5 per cent of B.C. nurses say patients occasionally or frequently get the wrong medication or dose; 34 per cent say patients have been injured in a fall while in care; and 35 per cent say patients have contracted an infection in hospital.

"Definitely, there are some causes for concern," said Margot Shields, a senior health statistics analyst with Statistics Canada, who led the team that prepared the report.

The study surveyed 19,000 nurses across Canada, including 2,300 of this province's 34,000 registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and psychiatric nurses.

The report shows that B.C. nurses are more likely than nurses in other provinces, to:

- Say staffing levels in the last shift worked were inadequate (39.7 per cent).

- Say the quality of patient care (35.2 per cent) has deteriorated in the past year.

- Report that a nursing team delivered fair or poor care (15.8 per cent).

- Admit they delivered fair or poor care (8.1 per cent, nearly double the national average).

- Say they have been injured while working in the past year (12.3 per cent).

- Say they are taking antidepressants (11.3 per cent) and sleeping pills (13.2 per cent).

- B.C. nurses(17.5 per cent) are second only to Quebec nurses (27.5 per cent) in saying that patients have occasionally or frequently been given wrong medications or doses.

- 32 per cent of B.C. nursesay they have been physically assaulted by a patient and 50 per cent of B.C. nurses have been emotionally abused at work by a patient, with 20.8 per cent saying they have been emotionally abused by a patient's visitor.

St. Paul's Hospital maternity nurse Bev Basaraba said a fairly common feeling among her colleagues is "intense job dissatisfaction over the fact that we feel we can't do enough because of the sheer volume of patients we have to care for. There are too few people doing far too much and you have to expect errors when that occurs," said Basaraba.

Debra McPherson, president of the B.C. Nurses Union, said the report validates what B.C. nurses have been saying for years, and most of the problems stem from the fact that B.C. is the province with the lowest number of registered nurses (66) per 10,000 population, in Canada.

She said there are 1,000 job vacancies in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health regions and efforts to increase the number of nurses being trained aren't having enough of an impact.

Other provinces, such as Manitoba, have introduced shorter (two-year) registered nursing diploma programs and that should and could be introduced here, as an alternative to the four-year nursing degree program, she said.

McPherson said there has been a "culture" of indifference to nurses' concerns and involvement in health policy at the health authority and hospital level.

As to the high levels of distress nurses feel about their workload, McPherson said: "Nurses love their work, they just hate their jobs. They love caring for patients but they don't like the fact that they face violence at work and a lack of support and respect."

Health Minister George Abbott was unavailable for an interview, but did issue a written statement to The Vancouver Sun, saying: "Our government recognizes many of the frustrations and challenges nurses are facing in our health care system.

"We are facing a shortage of about 2,000 nurses in our system, requiring the dedicated nurses we do have to work in challenging and complex environments."

Abbott said that since 2001 the government has increased nurse training spaces 75 per cent. "We have also invested $146 million through our BC Nursing Strategy, with initiatives to attractnurses from other jurisdictions and upgrade training for nurses presently in the workforce. In the labour agreement signed this spring with the B.C. Nurses Union, we have not only addressed compensation issues, but funded initiatives for violence prevention in the workplace and other areas to improve quality of the workplace."