Safety Concerns for Nurses
A lot of nurse’s decisions of whether to remain in the nursing field are due to their many concerns with safety measures. These same nurses state how the safety concerns play a heavy influence on them because of high levels of stress rooting from long hours as well as overtime. The percentage of nurses that decide to remove themselves from the field has been building and building in current years.
Mainly a lot of the safety and health concerns derive from nurses that fall between the ages of 41-50 and have had more then 10 years of experience. As for the high-pressure work environment and overtime these same nurses complain about back problems and the fear of contracting some kind of illness or obtain another injury. Some practices fear that nurses will up and leave or will not find nursing to be a career that they find attractive.
Although a lot of nurses confirm that they do feel safe in their current work place, there is always the threat of others who do not feel the same. A percentage of nurses say they were threatened with verbal abuse and a smaller percentage saying that they have been physically assaulted while on the job. We need to figure out a solution so that nurses do not feel anxious when they have to go into work. We can make necessary precautions so that the nursing field does not suffer from poor safety installments.
How do we make a change?
First, the employer must tackle health and safety concerns right from the start. This will eliminate the concerns nurses having going into a job. The working conditions for nurses needs to improve as well as compensation offered. As for the long scheduled hours, we could change the hours of work as well as shortening or eliminating overtime hours.
We do not want to see nurses losing interest in their field due to issues that can be easily solved with a few adjustments to the system. Nursing is an extremely rewarding field and we do not want to see a shortening in the field. By changing the way employers handle safety concerns for nurses we can begin to attract and retain nurses on a continuous basis.
