Nursing Shortage: Safety Issues Raised in Nova Scotia

HALIFAX -- Nurses who filed workload reports at Halifax-area hospitals last year complained of "unsafe" situations for patients caused by a shortage of nurses, including one case where an unattended patient yanked out his intravenous tubes.

The Workload Situation Reports -- also referred to as Quality Care Situation Reports -- describe staffing levels at half their normal level in 2008.

In 34 reports received through freedom of information laws by The Canadian Press, there were 17 instances when nurses with the Capital District Health Authority were assigned between 10 to 12 patients. Managers say the normal ratio is four or five patients per nurse on the units involved.

On April 8, another nurse on the wing wrote: "I had 11 patients. ... I had a patient who needed one-on-one attention and ended up going to intensive care at 1:30 a.m. The rest of my patients did not get proper care or assessment."

On April 24, a nurse who was on the unit wrote that she was an hour behind on providing medications to patients, and summarized her situation as "insane!"

On Jan. 19, three nurses on the same unit wrote that there were 32 patients on the unit, some of them "unstable," creating a workload of 10 or 11 patients per nurse.

"Meds were late. Unable to give patients care required. NOT SAFE. Unable to truly assess patients," wrote the nurses.