Reply #49: It depends. Most hospitals deliberately shortstaff.

[knitter4democracy]

Nurses cost money but don't bring in billing, so it's cheaper to pay higher malpractice insurance premiums than pay for enough nurses. Studies show that nurses save lives, that keeping a low patient to nurse ratio keeps people alive, but the bean counters in the hospital administrations just don't care. It's infuriating. Our local hospital is shortstaffing as much as they can and just shut down the children's ward entirely, blaming it on nurses when it was really the pediatricians who didn't want to cover it. Ugh.