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About 100 intensive care nurses retire each year. After the 2020 pandemic year, there will also be more people than usual who choose to retire after age 62.
– We know that and many have expressed it, says Paula Lykke.
She is the leader of the professional group for intensive care nurses of the Norwegian Nurses Association (NSF).
Dagbladet wrote Wednesday that Norwegian intensive care units are struggling to turn the wheels. The staff shortage is now so great that NSF leader Lill Sverresdatter Larsen believes “many are working their way to death.”
The fact that many intensive care nurses are now in the pension loader echelons worsens the staffing situation.
– Makes the situation serious. We need to make sure they have time off from time to time and give them a salary in relation to the workload, which can mean they can stay at work beyond the normal retirement age, says Sverresdatter Larsen.
DEMANDING: Working with critically ill patients requires vigilance. In Norway’s intensive care units, there are overtime and double shifts to spin the wheels. Photo: Jil Yngland / NTB
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– Fully critical
In Norwegian intensive care units, it is not uncommon for employees to have to work double shifts to fill gaps in rotation, says NSF. The fact that the pandemic has made it difficult to obtain foreign substitutes, on whom the Norwegian health service relies heavily, has not improved the situation either.
– It’s a vicious cycle, because you have to be your own substitute. We’ve been working overtime for a long time and that tires you, says Lykke.
– The general intensive capacity is pressure. In many places it is completely critical, because there is a lack of intensive care nurses.
– Nurses will be traumatized
– We are largely aware of this deficiency, and in smaller hospitals the situation is even worse. To top ministry officials, it may appear that there is good coverage in the big hospitals and that it has worked, but in the districts there has been a big leak and we are old, says Lykke.
Many nurses later receive their intensive care studies. After completing a bachelor’s degree in nursing, you must be in the profession for two years before the additional two-year education can begin. It takes 1.5 years and a master’s degree two years.
– It’s almost as long a career as becoming a doctor, and the average age of intensive care nurses is 48, says Lykke.
– Difficult
One of those who will retire in the next five years is 61-year-old Turid Hilde Petersen. He has been in the profession for 35 years, the last 30 at Østfold Kalnes Hospital.
She tells Dagbladet that Norway’s intensive care units have received more advanced treatment methods and that more people have a chance to survive during their career.
– But it requires a good training of employees and more with intensive education to have good skills. To maintain preparedness and competence, it is important to have enough experienced intensive care nurses on call. It is a difficult task to get the solitaire up.
Within the departments of covid-19
After turning 60, she stopped night shifts and is also 20 percent disabled. Therefore, you do not have the opportunity to work more, but you can change shifts and get time off later.
– But many of my colleagues work a lot of extra and double shifts. Especially now last year.
– Demanding and heavy
Even during a normal workday, it is difficult to turn the wheels.
– Patients must have medication and care, and many procedures and doctor visits must be performed. Reception of new critical patients. On top of all that, you should be able to take breaks and maybe a few meetings. It is difficult to make time to reach and reach the goal, but we help each other and do the best we can.
Inside the corona rooms: – Not a virus you can get rid of
She also talks about a workday that, in addition to being physically tired, is also mentally tired.
– I think it has been demanding to work in a ward with such sick patients, and I have seen many difficult destinies throughout many years in the profession. It tires you and is perhaps more demanding than the physical, he says.
Lose competition
Petersen believes hospitals lose a lot of important competition to train newcomers when intensive care nurses with many years in the profession retire.
– It is important to take care of the experience we have in order to strengthen those who come after us, he says.
Hard year: The year of the 2020 pandemic has been a difficult one for Norwegian nurses and the Norwegian Nurses Association fears that more than normal will be leaving the profession. Photograph: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB
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Petersen’s impression, however, is that health trusts are small on the supply side when it comes to keeping seniors at work.
– They could ask if there was anything they could do to keep us at work. I see that there are several very talented colleagues who have chosen to retire just at the age of 62, which we would like to keep.
– If there had been more resources in operation, the burden on each would not have been so heavy. Being able to get relief from work tasks other than patient work might also make employees last longer.
– When are you going to give up?
– I think I want to continue working after 62 years, but look one year at a time. 65 years is at least a limit.
He stated that the rapid tests were validated by FHI – he did not agree
– You must have a long-term plan
In intensive care units, there are roughly the same staff around the clock, requiring a large number of staff and a large proportion of work in the afternoon and evening, says Paula Lykke.
– There is nothing planned in an intensive care unit. You don’t plan for someone to die.
– The problem is that now there are many who will retire. Nor is it enough to increase educational capacity. We do not have enough teachers or practices, so we cannot train a large volume to improve intensive capacity immediately. Therefore, we must have a long-term plan to educate more people, says Lykke.
She also believes that many of the older intensive care nurses could have had graduates and trainees, and that people with broad competence are lost when that generation leaves.
Focus area
In the revised budget for 2020, the government has allocated 250 new study slots for a bachelor’s degree in nursing. 200 new study places have also been allocated for continuing education for nurses, Secretary of State Frøydis Høyem from the Ministry of Health informs Dagbladet.
In 2019, a plan was also launched for 80 new specialist nurses per year. This also includes intensive care nurses.
– The government has dealt with the challenges associated with recruiting, developing, and retaining nurses over time. In the Storting National Health and Hospitals Plan 2020-2023 report, which was launched last year, nurses and health professionals identify the staff groups they will focus on in the future. The corona pandemic has shown us even more clearly how important this is, Høyem says.
