The British Government today is facing a concerning situation . Due to the significant shortage of nurses, patients are sadly dying alone in hospitals.
The government imposed limitations in 2023 that had a significant impact on the families of international students in an effort to reduce immigration to the UK.
Just over one-third of nursing shifts, according to a recent research by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), had enough staff members.
The report emphasizes how these shortages frequently force nurses to oversee numerous patients at once.
Experts are advocating for nurse-to-patient ratio regulations that are centered on safety.
According to the RCN, a survey of more than 11,000 nursing practitioners found that a common source of demoralization was the incapacity to guarantee patient safety.
Merely 33% of participants stated that their shifts were filled with the intended number of registered nurses in both hospital and community settings.
Unsettlingly, a large number of outpatient and A&E nurses reported having to tend to over 51 patients at once.
One of the nurses working in the south-west England neighborhood stated that: ‘We have days when we have 60 visits unallocated because we don’t have enough staff. ‘We are always rushing.’
Another in the south of England said: ‘We leave over 50 patients requiring care unseen daily due to poor staffing levels.
‘This leads to increases in hospital admissions and death. It is left to us to decide who gets seen and who gets missed, which is heart-breaking.’
In a hospital in the West Midlands, one nurse said: “I have not been able to sit with patients who are dying, meaning they have been left to die alone.
‘I have not had the time to make sure patients are fed properly and have adequate drinks,” the report indicates.
And a midwife in a hospital in Yorkshire said: “Completely unsafe care due to unacceptable staffing levels.”
RCN acting general secretary Nicola Ranger said nurses are “fighting a losing battle to keep patients safe’ and described staffing levels as ‘dangerous to patients and demoralising for nursing staff’.
“We desperately need urgent investment in the nursing workforce but also to see safety-critical nurse-patient ratios enshrined in law. That is how we improve care and stop patients coming to harm,” she added.
Interestingly, the Nigerian government has instituted a requirement preventing nurses from seeking employment overseas until they have completed at least two years of service post-graduation.
Many nurses are disregarding these rules in spite of this direction because of their poor working conditions.
In an effort to stop the exodus of medical professionals from the continent, Nigerian nurses are actively protesting proposed regulations that would prevent them from working overseas for two years after completing their training.
Hundreds of nurses have demonstrated in favor of the policy’s repeal at the health regulator’s offices in Lagos and Abuja in recent days.
A report published in March 2024 by the UK Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC) states that in the six months before September 2023, the number of registered nurses with Nigerian training in the UK increased substantially by 625%.
In contrast to the 1,670 registered nurses who entered the UK workforce in the same period in 2022, 12,099 Nigerian-trained nurses entered the workforce during this time.
The NMC said: “We’ve seen the number of professionals joining the register for the first time between April and September more than double in the last five years – from 14,311 joiners in the six months to September 2018 to 30,103 in the same period this year.”