Nursing crunch at Valley hospitals hits healthcare

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 8

Kashmir hospitals are facing acute shortage of nurses as tertiary and secondary care hospitals have just a single nurse for at least 30 patients, which is adversely affecting the healthcare and increasing the mortality rate.

Officials say a single nurse attends at least 30 patients in a shift in the emergency ward of the SMHS Hospital.

“Even during night hours, there are only two nurses to take care of 60 patients in the general ward, which include postoperative patients, too,” a senior doctor said.

The 850-bed SMHS Hospital has 120 nurses which are not able to cater to the rush of indoor patients. “Sometimes, the number of admitted patients goes up to 1,000. Certainly, it is impossible for nurses to provide adequate care to all the patients,” said Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) president Dr Nisar ul Hassan.

He said the 600-bed Kashmir’s premier maternity hospital, Lal Ded Hospital, which had double the number of patients all the time just had 85 nurses.

The situation is grim at the SK Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), where two nurses are looking after 16 patients during the night shift in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

“For 16 patients in the ICU, 48 nurses are needed for three shifts with additional 30 per cent reserve. We have a huge shortage of nurses in our hospitals,” he said.

The situation is worse in peripheries where some hospitals run on only one nurse, Dr Hassan added.

The overburdened nurses are bound to make medical errors thus endangering the safety of patients.

Various studies have found that shortage of nurses in hospitals is related to increase in deaths.

“The appropriate number of nursing staff is critical to the delivery of quality patient care and it seems value of life has been lost in health care planning,” he said.