Nurses Are Needed Now More than Ever. Why Are They Burning Out?
From the spectator’s position, nurses are seen as hardworking and loving caregivers among their communities and hospitals. Beyond this, nurses are also individuals with thoughts, feelings and limitations to how much stress they can handle. In recent years, the amount of nurses in the workforce has not only decreased, the nursing community has grown discontent.
The world of medicine not only deals with the sick, it also serves as an economic powerhouse in the modern world. As a major form of business, the medical business world dictates how nurses are treated in the workplace. Many nurses feel burned out or displeased with their current nursing positions, and several of them have spoken out about their issues.
One nurse in particular claims that “when she got off work, she said, she would go home and pick vicious fights with her boyfriend. She wasn’t sleeping or eating well. She was constantly furious with her co-workers and supervisors. She remembers throwing a temper tantrum one night, flailing around on her bed like a 4-year-old.”
Even at a professional adult level, a large enough amount of stress can cause any individual to feel helpless. When this stress is elongated, it can quickly become an issue, especially among individuals that are required to work for long periods of time. Nurses are a prime example of how work-related stress can negatively affect a person.
The long hours
With every job, there are job requirements associated with the position and as such, nurses also fall under this unavoidable aspect. The demand for nurses is high, and it increases as more nurses remove themselves from their positions. Nurses have limitations, yet there is still a standard on how their work should be managed.
Even though nurses have a limited number of patients to care for, the long working hours of a medical care giver can grow to be taxing. Each patient requires a different level of care if they are to get any healthier while battling their issues. It is the role of the nurse to provide care for every patient, thus making the job of the nurse more complicated. The parameters of a nurse are also confining is some cases.
Unlike other medical personnel, nurses do not always receive the same benefits as their counterparts. However, the demand for nurses is consistently increasing, indicating that nurses work in a very competitive environment. Normally, this form of business practice is considered dishonest or unethical in term of how business practices should be conducted. However, some medical facilities have more leverage than others when discussing how a hospital or a medical facility gains its work staff. Nursing is an ever-increasing business practice, yet the reason for this demand is not always explained properly.
There are not enough nurses in the workforce
The nursing world is so competitive that it causes staffing issues within the medical workplace. Healthcare is an inexhaustible facet of business due to its necessity in society. With that being said, open nursing positions can appear extremely rare under most circumstances, yet hospitals make it their business to acquire the most efficient staff members.
Just as any other business practice, the struggle for power is constant in the nursing world. Burnout can occur for a number of different reasons, and the fickle nature of the medical world provides nurses with several more. To make matters worse, baby boomer generation, which is a large portion of nurses, is aging. This means that the demand of nurses is rising because of the large number of nurses retiring. As the medical world increases, the demand on nursing grows with not many individuals available to occupy the position.
One of the larger reasons behind this deficit of nurses would be the fact that these nurses realize how easily they can grow to be exhausted from their work. Outside of nurses, medical staff members are not always tact when dealing with informed or impaired individuals. Burned out nurses are unfortunate examples of how sensitive the relationship between nursing and quality medicine actually is.
The lack of respect
Respect is a fundamental part of the human existence, so much so that nothing would be completed without it. Mutual respect is considered to be common courtesy, yet nurses appear to have a difficult time receiving it. A survey also has found that approximately half of the nurses who participated considered actually leaving their position because they have felt overworked, their workload has increased, or that they have felt harassed or bullied by other staff members. Much like other professional facilities, there are superiors and executive staff members that manage the company itself.
In a hospital setting, the level of urgency when referring to nurses and other medical personnel is greatly increased. The lives of others are constantly at stake in the world of medicine, so added stress from a more powerful member of the hospital is not necessary. On another note, everyone in the workplace deserves some level of respect if any work is expected to be completed. Nurses are virtually married to caregiving, yet many of them feel forced to abdicate from this principle after working in a poor environment.
Researchers claim that “changing the health care system isn’t a magic bullet. After all, burnout is also a serious problem in the government-funded health care system.” Burnout among nurses is recognized as a serious issue, yet not much is being done to alleviate these poor qualities of the work world. To do well in the world, medical or not, there needs to be respect.
Humans are designed to only support so much pressure before collapsing under the weight of their own issues. Nurses are human beings as well, making them vulnerable to the consequences of existing in the world. The medical world is unforgiving, yet it is the nurses who provide the most emotional support towards the patients while functioning in the hospital. Research indicates that “the problem of burnout goes beyond the issue of nurses leaving their jobs. By definition, nurses who are burned out have gone beyond stressed to the point where they can no longer function well at work.”
A nurse’s job goes beyond replacing IV fluids and changing bedsheets, despite the stereotypes of the profession. When pressure becomes a constant issue and the mundane transforms itself into an intolerable force, burnout will occur, it is simply a matter of time.
Nurses can only handle so many patients, listen to so many people, and help only a handful of patients throughout the day. To prevent nurses from burning out, a more functional staffing system must exist.
