In 2011 the nurse to patient ratio was introduced to Queensland Legislation which means the number of nurses on a ward to the number of patients under their care. I feel that the ratio is not meeting the requirements of what is actually needed in our hospitals or any care facilities. This is a major problem that is facing our nurses in today’s society. Over my time working in aged care and also having placement in the hospital throughout my course I found that nurses take on quite a large load. In the hospital setting I found on some shifts there were 16 patients to 1 RN and 1 EN working ratio 1:8 and the nurses were run off their feet. This is a critical ratio where there could possibly be a lot of errors made. …show more content…
(2013). On July 24, 5000 Nurses and Midwives from 180 hospitals and a further 2000 regional members attended rallies while striking to improve and extend the nurse ratios. During the course of negotiations with the union and Government the striking implemented the closure of beds and service restrictions to ensure the safe patient care. As stated by Deborah Wells in the A show of strength. (2013) Patients and the general community and aware of the problems within our hospital system, they are not happy with having to wait for pain relief and medication and to go to the toilet all because of the staff shortages. The patients are aware that nurses are trying to do the best they can with the limited time due to the heavy loads put upon nursing staff. Monica Northrop also has stated that some wards have two nurses to ten to twelve patients at a time with the lack of nurses employed agency are frequently called and this can be quite dangerous not knowing the ward or patients. Strikes in New South Wales were held until the correct implementation of ratios were met and now currently exist today. The state of Victoria from the pdf Ratios Doc produced by ANMF Vic branch. During the pre-lead up to 2000 Victoria’s hospital system was in a shamble with over 400 beds closed on a given day and nursing numbers decreasing to a minimum of only 23% with more and more nursing staff working less shifts. It was estimated over twenty thousand nurses had decided to leave their jobs and 1300 nursing jobs become vacant. Within the introduction Lisa Fitzpatrick states, Victoria the nurses and midwives have had the nurse to patient ratio introduced 15 years ago. Victoria was the first state to introduce a mandated Nurse to patient ratio in their enterprise agreement in 2000. This guaranteed that there was a minimum number of qualified nurses for each shift to the allocated amount of patients for each nurse the directly related to the