National scandal of jaded nurses

IT is a scandal that nursing staff, already under immense work pressure, are being left to run wards single-handedly.

On one day this week at least five separate wards in Scotland’s showpiece hospital, the QEUH, had just one registered nurse in charge of an estimated 30 patients.

While nurses were assisted by other staff, it is the expertise of registered nurses which can make the difference between life and death.

Patients’ lives are being put at risk by the lack of staff on wards and if mistakes are made it will ultimately be these hardpressed nurses who will carry the can.

The spike in Covid cases has hit hospital staff as well as the general public and the situation is now at crisis point.

We have seen record waiting times at A&E and ambulances stacked up outside.

And now there are exhausted nurses, already on their knees from two years of Covid, being put upon even further with no signs of the Scottish Government’s promised safe staffing levels being introduced any time soon.

On top of this nurses are being offered wage rises far below the rate of inflation.

It is little wonder they are leaving the profession in their droves,

Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie says that Health Secretary Humza Yousaf has been repeatedly warned about the staffing crisis.

And he needs to stop sticking his head in the sand and act before more lives are lost.

On this latest evidence it would seem she is right.

The Government must do more to prevent this inexcusable burden on our hard-working nursing staff.