The number of registered nurses last month increased by 3,592 from a year earlier and 237 from April to 189,640, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Department of Nursing and Health Care said, amid reports of a nursing shortage.
Among the 189,640, 119,569 were working in healthcare facilities, an increase of 809 from a year earlier, it said.
Most of the increases in nursing staff were at medical centers, where the nurse-to-patient ratios were lower, while regional hospitals had more difficulty adding nurses, the department said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
A survey last year showed that the higher the nurse-to-patient ratio, the higher the nursing staff turnover rate, it said.
Historical data show that the number of registered nurses in practice is usually at its lowest between January and April, and rises to its highest between September and November, it said.
The ministry’s new standards for reducing the nurse-to-patient ratios for three shifts at medical centers, regional hospitals and district hospitals were approved in September last year, and went into effect in March this year.
The department added that the number of hospital beds last month increased by 1,878 from a year earlier.
The department released the data in response to a series of reports by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) yesterday that a nursing shortage has led to hospitals cutting back on beds.
The report cited the case of a man who was diagnosed with appendicitis and underwent emergency surgery, but had to lie in a bed in the corridor outside the emergency room after the surgery as there was no available bed.
The report added that many hospitals had been forced to reduce the number of beds due to a nursing shortage.
It also cited Shinkong Wu Ho-su Memorial Hospital vice superintendent Hung Tzu-jen (洪子仁) as saying that some hospitals could not meet the new standard for nurse-to-patient ratios and had to reduce beds.
The ministry’s graveyard shift bonus seemed to have helped stop nurses from leaving medical centers, but the turnover rate is still high in some regional hospitals, the report quoted Hung as saying.
Another UDN article quoted a senior surgeon, who asked to remain anonymous and works in a regional hospital in northern Taiwan which reduced its number of beds by 30 percent, as saying that, affected by the nursing shortage, many surgeries had to be postponed, and patients who received priority surgery in the emergency room had to wait an average of two to three days for a bed post-surgery.
The report cited the surgeon as saying that another medical center in southern Taiwan is suffering from shortage of scrub nurses and anesthesiologists, so it had to introduce a rule of no surgeries after 2pm.
Many large hospitals have offered higher salaries and bonuses to recruit and retain nurses, but monetary incentives might not be enough, the report said.
Most nurses also want reasonable paid leave, especially flexible shifts so that they can go on vacation abroad, Hung was quoted as saying, adding that some hospitals have temporarily reduced beds to let nurses go on vacation to encourage them to stay.
According to the Medical Act (醫療法), when hospitals make changes to the number of available beds, they should report to the local health department, but the ministry will continue to look into the actual situation on the ground, the department said.
The department’s official Web site has a “friendly nursing workplace” (友善護理職場專區) section that publishes the salaries, welfare benefits and working conditions of healthcare facilities to serve as a reference for nurses looking for a job.
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