Health Workforce Policy: The Problems and The Solutions to This Crisis

Health Workforce Policy: The Problems and the Solutions to this crisis  

Tiffany J. Eley

Park University

Introduction

Imagine you go into a hospital and have a serious injury at this point all you are thinking about is being able to see a nurse, doctor, practically anyone that will be able to assist you because you feel like you are on your death bed. Now, one nurse comes out and tells you that it is going to be a wait and as you look through the crowded hospital you become discouraged because you do not know at this point if you will even make it before a trained professional comes to your rescue. The nurse tells you as you are disillusioned by pain that they do not have enough health care workers that can assist with all the patients that have come in at one time and do not know when they can come help you because there are many other serious cases in front of you. As you look at the clock the hours seem to turn into days and days into weeks and by the time a nurse even comes out to get you it has been at least 8-9 hours and you are in excruciating pain. Once you are wheeled into the back room and get your vitals checked and are asked what you are there for the nurse rolls you to another room and says that it will be another very long wait as they only have one doctor and once again he has many patients ahead of you who are in worst condition than what you seem to be in. While behind the curtain you can hear the screams of people who have worst injuries than you but because there is only one doctor, like you they will also have to wait their turn all the while in agony. Now it is the next day and the doctor has finally come in to see you he explains that he was up all night and he is extremely sorry for having you wait so long but it was only him and 2 nurses that were on duty for the night. This is the reality of some hospitals and health facilities around the country and around the world and although there is health policies for states and countries to maintain a sufficient number of health care workers for normal operations and for emergencies the decline of these health care workers continues to be an uncontrollable issue and states around the country and the globe are in a dire need to find out how to train more of these professionals to be able to have an abundance of these workers and stop the shortages.

Health care delivery is a very important and highly intensive career field to work, health professionals have to be able to make treatment decisions and determine what should be done with a patient at a moment’s notice, they have to have compassion and be attentive to patients’ needs and be able to research or refer to other sources to find the best treatments and cures. The issue is that most health workers do not want these positions but are enticed with other positions in the health field that do not require them to actually handle patients or the handling of patients is very minimal. Most states and countries that are faced with a shortage of workers have three dimensions which are availability, which relates to the supply of qualified health workers, distribution, which relates to the recruitment and retention of health workers where their presence is most needed, and performance, which relates to health worker productivity and to the quality of the care that health workers provide (McPake et al., 2013, p. 841). In these three dimensions is the lack of available qualified workers to be able to treat patients. Although most know about the shortages around the world of health workers there is little that is being done to recruit and ensure that professionals can get the training that they need in a short amount of time to be sure that they are ready to handle patients.