Working as a human resources representative for a hospital, I get my share of complaints and even though the majority of them are somewhat routine in my book, I have been getting a few contacts in the past few months about nurse-to-patient ratio which we are trying to solve at the moment.
Thank goodness, our hospital is financially sound and we are able to afford to hire extra nurses unlike many hospitals around the world.
This brings me to the meat of this post where the nurses and midwives at Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital (in the UK) who are holding a rally today to get the government to address the nursing shortage.
It seems like articles about the nursing shortage are more and more common in the news today and am glad that at my hospital it has not gotten to that point yet.
As a big supporter of good healthcare service, I want to share here some methods that I have been using with some good success whenever I have to find new nurses to hire:
- Advertising in the local newspaper has worked well when I am looking for a registered nurse or a nurse assistant.
- Going to nursing job boards for finding nurses has also been productive as it is constantly updated with nurses looking for jobs.
- Local Board of Nurses has done ok but it is not my favorite method as the list I get from them is long and most of the people on the list are not available to work.
Ending this post, I do encourage everyone to support any local or federal efforts to improve the nurse-to-patient ratio as you never know when you may be checking in a hospital.
