Why health organisations need enough nurses on board.

Jul 15, 2017
Paul Johnson

The nursing profession is not one that comes with secure employment. Every year new graduates are launched en masse into the profession, there is no guarantee of a job opportunity although there are many health organizations.

There are many health organizations with fewer number of registered nurses. This may be as a result of an overwhelming salary budget and a consequential inability to pay nurses well. But it is not out of place to say that nurses are needed in full numbers in any health organization.

Read on to see valid reasons why health organizations need enough nurses on board.

The role of a nurse is a unique one, and that is why they are different from doctors. Nurses are equipped with a vast knowledge of patient experience. They possess skills that enable critical thinking on how to improve the process of patient care.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), there are four fields of practice in the nurses’ register. These fields include:

  • Adult Nursing
  • Mental Health Nursing
  • Learning disabilities nursing
  • Children’s Nursing

Nurses play an essential role in the hospital and health care. Every registered nurse identifies with one of these fields with a multi-disciplinary approach.

Beyond the four fields, there are specialized areas in each field that nurses are trained to function in to meet specific health needs. However, combining the roles of five nurses in one nurse will result in over-working and inefficiency in service delivery.

Nurses also play an essential role in the promotion of public health. By tradition, the idea of health promotion was established to emphasize community health; with a focus on disease prevention and control; and changing the lifestyle of individuals to suit their health.

At the heart of this practice is public protection. The community public health nursing practice ensures that everyone in a community receives formal health services. The community public health nurse is one that assesses and identifies sub-populations that are at risk of diseases.

The majority understand that the work of nurses is a highly demanding one, physically and emotionally. Nursing is much more than delivering care as ordered and providing physical and emotional comfort to patients and their families.

See the following critical tasks nurses take on:

  • Logical and organizational competence
  • Monitoring and assessment of patients
  • Initiating interventions to reduce health risks
  • Coordinating care delivered by other health providers
  • Clinical nursing practices and consultation
  • Follow-up treatment
  • Educating patients and family members about illness prevention.
  • Carrying out routine rounds of administering medication, injections, and intravenous infusions
  • Handling emergencies
  • Supervising junior staff and tutoring student nurses

The availability of enough nurses will bring about many positive health outcomes, such as

  • Constancy in a healthy lifestyle
  • Improved quality of life,
  • Patients’ knowledge of their health conditions,
  • Patients’ mental stability, to mention but a few.

Speaking of leadership roles, not many nurses fill up this capacity. But the views of nurses, if well represented at the peak of hospital management, will result in sound decision making.

Concerning each field of practice, nurses are entirely indispensable and essential in health organizations. Any health organization with substantial nursing staff is sure to run efficiently and orderly.