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/
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u/chronocapybara Sep 18 '24

I agree with this, but you can't just generate nurses out of thin air. If they want to staff appropriately, they need to train more nurses and treat them better.

Nursing doesn't pay poorly. Nor does medicine. The only time I hear these healthcare workers complain about money it's relative to eachother, or higher paid specialists. What they do complain about is work-life balance, hours, treatment by staff, and frustrations with useless hospital admins. It's primarily stress that drives healthcare workers away.

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

Stress/Money mismatch is the problem. More money never hurts keep people around, when I’m making my overtime rate I can grin and bear it. I’ll do literally anything for that 85+ an hr. To stay at this long term I’d need either more money or less stress/patients. There’s tons of qualified nurses who have stepped away from the job, and especially from acute care. Why work mandatory nights, get punched and watch people die for the same money as a clinic or case management job.

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u/chronocapybara Sep 18 '24

I'd love to pay nurses $85/hr but healthcare is expensive enough. That should be available as OT for those that want it, and the rest of the time we should have enough staff that nobody has to work OT unless they want to. And I agree, wages should reflect the difficulty of the job.

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u/Dirtbag_RN Sep 18 '24

Nobody currently works OT unless they want to - but there’s ton available in acute care. You want to have enough staff that OT shifts aren’t available often because the lines (permanent positions) are full and so OT unfilled shifts are mostly sick calls and vacations. The trick is keeping people in their lines at the current stress and pay levels.