Nurses warn lives at risk over understaffing
PATIENTS’ lives would be jeopardised if plans to use this year’s nursing school graduates in several new hospital departments went ahead, a senior nurse said yesterday.
Forced to work double shifts for weeks on end without a day off, the nurse, who wished to remain unnamed, said what concerned the nurses most was an accident.
“What we do involves human lives. Can you imagine if someone dies?”
The nurse said the risk of such an accident occurring was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
“If there’s an accident and a patient dies we’ll be held responsible not the minister. Are they going to say it happened because we are tired and overworked? That’s why we’ve reacted [to the minister’s proposal]. If we had the staff he could open as many [departments] as he wants,” she said.
On Monday Health Minister Charis Charalambous said this year’s 114 new nursing graduates would be used by the ministry to operate new departments at hospitals in the Nicosia, Famagusta and Paphos districts. His decision prompted threats of strike action from the government nurses union which said existing departments were already understaffed by 292 nurses and that it had been counting on the new graduates to bolster them.
Unless the minister recalls his decision and sits down to talks with the union, its members will stage a 24-hour work stoppage on Monday.
Included in the minister’s plans is the operation of four more operating theatres at Nicosia general hospital.
But the nurse said that one theatre alone needed a staff of 50 nurses to run efficiently, taking into account days off and nights off.
“That’s 50 and we’re talking about 114 nurses to be spread out across all the new departments. You need a lot of nurses to open a department to function normally and to cover all its needs,” she said.
The nurse said under normal circumstances every fourth Sunday was allowed off but that she hadn’t had one in weeks.
“I have some colleagues who haven’t had a single day off, let alone a Sunday, for the past three to four weeks,” she said.
Setting aside the fact that the conditions put a strain on the nurses’ personal and family lives, she said their main concern was patients’ lives.
“If we are already understaffed, how are these new departments supposed to operate? They will also be understaffed. Take Nicosia general hospital’s Accident and Emergency department. It’s supposed to be staffed with 75 nurses and there are only 50 nurses. We’re already under the norm, so how is the government going to open new departments?”
The nurse said during one six-hour shift the A&E had to have 10 nurses yet it currently ran with five.
“If in those hours we see an average of 250 patients how much attention do you think we are going to be able to give them when there are only five of us?” she said.
The nurse said the minister presented the situation in such a way that it appeared they simply didn’t want the new departments. But he did not mention the reasons why, nor that after a 12 hour night shift that started at 7pm and ended at 7.30am, the nurses often had to be back at work at 1pm for the afternoon shift when ordinarily they should have had the rest of the day off, she said.
The nurse said it was also cost effective for the government to use the new nurses to boost the existing departments as it would spare it from paying overtime.
“As long as the existing departments work well then we want the other departments to open. But with such little staff, and the already existing problems, you cannot open new departments as it will only create more problems,” she said.
The nurse added that with private hospitals demanding quality and paying better than the government hospitals, a lot of nurses would consider jumping ship.
“It’s not easy to leave the government and all its benefits to start working in the private sector, but the way things are going that is what will happen,” she added.
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