Shortage of Staff

Janna Enikeeva
Date Submitted: February 3, 2016
Practical Nursing Leadership
Humber College

Shortage of Staff
Shortage of staff in nursing is something we have heard about for years. It seems to be a
never-ending problem with no solution in sight. The reason its such a big issue is because it can
directly lead to other problems such as poor staff/patient satisfaction and high turnover rate.
According to Buchan (2008), Failure to deal with a nursing shortage be it local, regional,
national or global will lead to failure to maintain or improve health care (Nursing Shortages
and Their Impact section, para. 1).
First off all, its important to define what exactly the phrase staff shortage means.
Buchan (2008) says, A shortage would be identified where an imbalance exists between the
requirements for nursing skills (usually defined as a number of nurses) and the actual availability
of nurses (Nursing Shortages and Their Impact section, para. 5). With that in mind, it should be
easy to identify whether this problem exists in this specific nursing unit. If all the patients needs
are satisfied in an efficient and timely manner, while maintaining a positive atmosphere in the
unit (i.e. not feeling overworked/underpaid), then we can assume that there isnt a problem.
However, the difficulty lies in finding that proper balance.
In 2012, The Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States projected that in 2022, there
will be 1,052,600 job openings for registered nurses, which ranks itself 4th on the list (BLS, 2013,
Occupations with the Largest Projected Number of Job Openings Due to Growth and
Replacement Needs, 2012 and Projected 2022). This will coincide with, an increased need for
nursing services due to aging of the baby boom generation (Keenan, 2003, The Nursing
Workforce Shortage: Causes, Consequences, Proposed Solutions, pg. 1). This poses an additional
problem when you realize that a survey done in 2013 by the National Council of State Boards

of Nursing and The Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers shows that approximately
55% of registered nurses are 50 or older (American Association of Colleges of Nursing,
2013, Contributing Factors Impacting the Nursing Shortage, para. 5). The situation isnt
limited to North America, it becomes an even bigger problem when we turn to developing
or low-income countries. Buchan and Calman (2004) write, One recent estimate is that subSaharan African countries have a shortfall of more than 600,000 nurses needed to meet the
Millennium Development Goals (The Global Shortage of Registered Nurses, pg. 5). There are a
plethora of sources all saying the same thing. There are simply not enough nurses to fulfill all the
needs of the public and as time goes on, things will only get more and more dire.
In terms of solving the problem of staff shortage in a specific nursing unit, there are really
only two solutions. The first solution requires lessening the amount of patients that the unit
oversees. However, this poses an ethical conflict due to the fact that nurses feels morally
obligated to help those who are in need. By turning people away, you create an internal struggle
within their minds because they feel like they are betraying the duty they have sworn to uphold.
The alternative would be to simply hire more nurses to accommodate the number of patients, and
this is the action that I believe should be taken.
In order to implement this solution, it would simply be a matter of putting out more job
postings and interviewing those who apply. There is also the option of requesting nurses to be
transferred to your unit from another location or even from another team within the building. Of
course, this is easier said than done because things like wages and equipment need to be
accounted for.

To evaluate how well the solution works after its been implemented, two things need to
be taken into consideration. Firstly, are the patients satisfied with the care they are receiving, and
secondly, are the nurses satisfied with their working conditions? If the answers to both of these
questions are yes then the solution was a success. However, if there was only a minor
improvement, then a secondary implementation of the solution needs to take place (i.e. more
nurses need to be added to the team).

References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2014, April 24). Nursing shortage. Retrieved from
http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-shortage
Buchan, J. (2008). Solving nursing shortages: a common priority. Journal of
Clinical Nursing, 17(14), 3262-3268. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2858425/
Buchan, J., & Calman, L. (2004). The global shortage of registered nurses: an overview of issues
and actions. The Global Nursing Review Initiative. Retrieved from
http://www.icn.ch/images/stories/documents/publications/GNRI/Global_shortage_Overview.pdf
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2013). [Table illustration December 19th, 2013]. Occupations with
the Largest Projected Number of Job Openings Due to Growth and Replacement Needs, 2012
and Projected 2022. Retrieved from
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t08.htm
Keenan, P. (2003, April). The nursing workforce shortage: causes, consequences, proposed
solutions. Retrieved from
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/keenan_nursing.pdf