I came across this website while just doing a little browsing for any new insights into the nursing shortage–you know, hoping to find an article about how a facility has discontinued canceling nursing shifts when patient census is down, or how they are stocking their place with state of the art technology that will make the lives of nurses easier, or have adopted realistic nurse-patient ratios –you know, stuff that will help keep nurses on the job.

Instead, I found this odd website devoted to the nursing shortage. The title of the website is “Nursing Shortage” and then it has a nice little set of buttons down the side which are supposed to tell you all that you ever wanted to know about the nurse scarcity gripping the nation.

There is no mention of who owns this site, who runs it, or anything–just a half-baked generic email address. And if you actually click on the buttons and read the content…well, with each click, it looks suspiciously more and more like PR double talk.

“Reasons behind the nursing shortage” makes no mention of burn-out or experienced nurses leaving the profession. It only gives the usual, tired, let’s get out the violins excuse of how schools can’t mass produce enough little nurses on the assembly line. And yes, it also squeezes in about the boomers getting old, decrepit, and sickly, and how they will need nurses to change their catheters and bedpans…

And yet, the usual schtick about nurses retiring…

Are we in Kansas yet?

The other sections are no more enlightening. This is from their section on “addressing the shortage:”

When the factors behind the nursing shortage are thoroughly analyzed, it becomes apparent that in order to begin to fix the problem, one of the factors in this cycle needs to be stopped. The cycle is such that there are fewer nurses because many older nurses are retiring. However, there are fewer nursing graduates entering the field because of a lack of funding to nursing schools and programs. How can these younger nurses be expected to enter the field if their educational needs cannot be met? The most important way in which the nursing shortage can be addressed is through this avenue. In order for the shortage to begin to be alleviated, the lack of funding and space in these nursing programs needs to be evaluated. Because of these constraining factors, not enough applicants can be accepted and therefore graduate ready to enter the field –and the shortage continues to grow.

The rest of the section is just as silly. Nothing about improving working conditions, retention of nurses, and so on. The section called “World of Nursing” does mention burn-out, but its entire focus is on long hours–12 hours shifts which many nurses actually prefer working–and on unsafe patient loads. But the way they put it:

Nursing shortages and turnover rates have been reported to be the highest in critical care facilities, in which nurses are worked for long hours and have to care for more patients then they feel they can safely care for.

Uh, what about other areas of the hospital? Unsafe patient loads are not mentioned, like the med/surg nurse assigned 10 patients–6 with IV meds, 4 who can’t get out of bed, 5 with colostomies, 3 with NG tubes, 2 on oxygen…you get the idea.

They also make no mention of mandatory overtime, which is one of the reasons why nurses are working such long hours. Or of the general disrespect that nurses get on the job, or verbal/physical abuse, or hospital PR weenies screaming that the “customer is always right” even if the patient slugs the nurse in the face….and so on.

It’s hard to figure out who put together this brilliant little piece of information. There’s a lot in it about agency nursing and travel nursing, so I’m assuming that a temp agency put it together. If anyone thinks that putting out nonsense like this is “helping” the nursing shortage, they are sadly mistaken. It merely just helps to fuel the myth that hospitals are desperate and willing to do anything to hire and keep their nurses, that workplace abuse just doesn’t exist, and that the primary reason for the shortage is a lack of new nurses.

This is like, getting so old…