US in Grip of Grave Crisis

This time it is not Osama. But surely another crisis which if not tackled may not only terrify but also can paralyze the entire USA. It is the humongous shortage of nursing, which may attain a gigantic proportion in the coming days. It has been reported by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a free market-oriented nonprofit group that the severe deficiency has led to the augmentation of death and illness for American patients. It is to be noted, that it has already been opined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that due to the ageing of the baby boomers and in the need of more care, there can be a shortage of one million nurses by 2020.

The recently published study of the NFAP entitled "Deadly Consequences: The Hidden Impact of America's Nursing Shortage," has been an imperative component of the medical literature on the shortage and in part a set of policy proposals. There has been the citation of a great number of instances projecting on the efficiency of an individual nurse. To the report, with the increase of the workload of a nurse from four to eight patients there is the potential increase of 31% in patient mortality. To the study "substantial decreases in mortality rates could result from increasing registered nurse staffing, especially for patients who develop complications." In addition to get rid of the present crisis there has been the recommendation of two policies. The first one is to elevate nursing faculties and school infrastructure both by means of quality and number. Whereas the second one prescribes the relaxation of immigration quotas so as to bring in more foreign nurses. It must be accepted that the U.S. health-care system being a network of for-profit companies intermingled with large-scale government programs it is however indistinct that nurses stand to earn much more.

Speaking to the present correspondent Stuart Anderson, the Executive Director of NFAP said, "Limits on wages arise from reimbursements from insurance companies and Medicare. If hospitals did spend money to bid up nurses' salaries, they'd have a significant cash problem, or they'd probably cut something somewhere else."