That was a big concern for the nurse.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of how unwell these kids are and how quickly they can deteriorate, we can\u2019t have four kids to one of us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A nurse at Auckland\u2019s Starship children\u2019s hospital says staff in her ward were dealing with three patients to one nurse during the week, but nights and weekends were a different story. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot give our best version of ourself as a nurse to four kids at once, that\u2019s just impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consequences would be neglect and late medication, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of have to prioritise and go like \u2018who is most unwell, and who needs our attention the most?\u2019, when all the kids need our attention, all the kids deserve our version of our best self, on time, at the right time, when they need, not when we can, because we\u2019ve got too much going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staffing levels were leading to issues like children not getting their medication on time or at times dosing errors, the nurse said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur roster is getting approved to have three nurses start on a night shift, where we will have 15 kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where I start to get really worried and I am constantly working in fear because a mistake is bound to happen at some point when I\u2019ve got so many things that I need to get done just on each hour, it\u2019s so easy to miss something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Errors like giving late medication were a common occurrence, the nurse said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are aware that you\u2019ve got this medication that\u2019s due at 5pm, but I\u2019m not going to be finished by 5pm, so you have to prioritise your roles and your jobs and go, \u2018what is needed first, what is needed second\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese timely medications are being given late to some extent every day, and that\u2019s just because the workload is too much, that it\u2019s taking too much time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nurse described it as playing catch-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, it\u2019s the kids that we are failing, and it\u2019s the kids that are being neglected,\u201d the nurse said.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just more nurses that was needed, she said, but experience and specialised training as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel we need a change in the whole system but maybe also some perks to going through nursing school like some more funding, paid training, something that will encourage people thinking of doing nursing to actually get up, apply, and go through the training to become a nurse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Starship nurse said the hospital\u2019s cancer ward was losing at least one nurse a month, looking at the situation annually.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to other parts of Starship, they\u2019re going to other hospitals to get the same pay and be in a better situation, and fair enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health New Zealand\u2019s Starship Hospital director, Doctor Greg Williams, said Starship has a very low rate of medication error.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not had any serious medication errors in Starship recently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams had earlier said all vacant nursing roles at Starship Hospital\u2019s paediatric haematology and oncology service were recruited for or in the process of being recruited for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are supporting the service with additional staffing including senior staff from the service, and staffing from across Starship and Auckland City Hospital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no set number of staff providing support, they are used when and where it\u2019s needed, depending on both planned work and acute changes in workload.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of staff working on a ward at any given time was dynamic, variable, and changed day to day, sometimes even hour by hour, Williams said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That was a big concern for the nurse. \u201cBecause of how unwell these kids are and how quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[27129,61585,29411,38268,134,527,2241,13620,111,139,11515,69,48782,1516,5147,61,8218],"class_list":["post-637753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-blackwell","tag-consequences","tag-dire","tag-finn","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hospital","tag-leading","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nurse","tag-nz","tag-shortages","tag-staff","tag-starship","tag-to","tag-warns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}