7 in 10 Ontario nurses say they can’t provide adequate patient care, study says
Global News
A new study finds that nearly seven in 10 nurses in Ontario cannot provide adequate patient care with almost half saying they are considering leaving the profession for good.
A new study finds that nearly seven in 10 nurses in Ontario cannot provide adequate patient care with almost half saying they are considering leaving the profession for good.
A recent WeRPN (Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario) survey is raising the alarm over its findings that patient care is being critically compromised due to “staffing shortages and the standardization of unsafe workloads.”
The survey found that 68 per cent of nurses say they do not have enough time or resources to properly care for patients.
Sixty-six per cent said they’ve had to take on more patients with higher patient-to-nurse ratios.
The survey was conducted in May 2022 and called “The State of Nursing in Ontario: A 2022 Review” and polled more than 760 RPNs across the province. It was a follow-up study from December 2020 to measure the conditions of the provincial health care system through the perspectives of nurses.
It also found 86 per cent of nurses surveyed said they have been asked to take on more shifts or overtime to cover staffing shortages.
When it comes to workplace atmosphere, the study also found that moral distress is up and mental health has been impacted.
Four in five nurses (79 per cent) said they are experiencing moral distress on the job as they feel what is ethically correct to do differs from what they are tasked to do. This is up from 68 per cent reported in the 2020 survey.
