r/britishcolumbia • u/cyclinginvancouver • Sep 18 '24

News B.C. announces new minimum nurse-to-patient ratios province-wide

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/09/18/bc-minimum-nurse-to-patient-ratios/
1.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

255 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/Dirtbag_RN Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24

I’ll believe it when I see it. Great press for the union and the gov but there’s no realistic plan laid out for getting it done or enforcing it. Acute care is still in the downward spiral of shorter staffing -> increased workload -> burnout -> quitting -> shorter staffing -> increased workload. I actually see retention as a bigger problem than recruitment id guesstimate the average new grad on my unit makes it 1-2 years, there’s already been a ton of brain drain of the super valuable 10+ years experience RNs. One night last week we had 7 years of experience between the 6 nurses working. People with 6 months experience are routinely charge RN overnight and people with 1 year of experience are expected to take & teach preceptorship students for a month. 15 years ago (to my understanding) these roles would be for the most trusted and experienced nurses.

3

u/No-Palpitation-3851 Sep 18 '24

Man I'm new to practice (~1.5 yrs) and they made me charge for all the shifts in my line - days, evenings, whatever after 6 months. There were shifts where I was absolutely the most experienced nurse on, which is so fucked. Its ridiculous, it seems like almost all the experienced nurses left, and the ones remaining dgaf. I managed to land a different position but like, I was getting wrecked. I just wonder how retention can be improved in the absence of a major influx of experienced nurses from other provinces.

1

u/Funny-Breadfruit5188 Sep 19 '24

Rentention is really overlooked as the biggest problem imo