Nurse To Patient Ratio

I agree with you by stating that having a higher nurse to patient ratio increases the risk of harm to our patients and the nursing staff. Unfortunately, I deal with nurse to patient 1:8 ratios on daily basis and I won’t lie to you at times takes a toll on our patients and our nurses as well. One example that I dealt with recently was when one of my patient’s blood sugar plummeted to 50 that needed prompt attention to follow up the hypoglycemia protocol. I had to make sure that the patient condition would not deteriorate by treating the symptoms right away by giving 15 gram of glucose, rechecking blood sugar after 15minutes, and calling the doctor on call. Unfortunately, there were no other nurses to attended to the other patients because they
were busy with their own patients. With this emergency going I felt my other patients were neglected by not getting the proper care from me but eventually I was able to catch up my meeting their needs. “Better staffing can allow nurses to perform better surveillance, spend more time with patients, and detect complications earlier, leading to favorable patient outcomes (Clarke & Aiken, 2003).”