Letter to the editor: Nurses deserve better

Think about this: You take a job as a nurse and you work one day afternoon shift, then the next day daylight shift, then the third day you work the midnight shift (not the same 8-hour shift all week). Either you have little time to rest between shifts or twice as much time between shifts. Who wants to work like that with no consistent schedule? Then nurses have forced double shifts (extra hours) when someone doesn’t show up.

Think about all the patients they’re working with, all with different problems. Nurses are making decisions right and left, and they’re not supposed to make mistakes. Often these are life-or-death decisions for the patients.

These are some of the complaints I hear from people working in health care. Surely the people in charge know this. Maybe they want them to quit so they can hire other people at a cheaper rate to save money for the hospital.

Surely they should see this problem, which I expect will get worse before it gets better — unless they wise up. Maybe the people in charge should be fired and replaced with someone who does understand.

These nurses may be working with you or me. So let’s get the problems fixed!

Cliff Long

Unity