Nursing shortage affecting developed countries

Many of the world’s most developed countries are desperately short of nurses, a new book edited by a University of Ulster academic has claimed.

According to the book, ‘Doctoral Education in Nursing – International Perspectives’, edited by Professor Hugh McKenna, former head of the School of Nursing at UU and current Dean of the Faculty of Life & Health Sciences, the number of nursing graduates in Canada has fallen from around 8,000 a year in the early 1990s to 4,000 in 2000. Although around 12,000 students enroll in nursing programmes each year, up to half leave before completing the course.

In the USA there has also been a severe shortage of nurses for a number of years. In Europe, meanwhile, Finland’s shortage is expected to get worse as the population ages while the Netherlands and Sweden report a lack of nurses in specialized areas of practice. This shortage of nurses across Europe has been developing since the 1980s.

The book also claims the situation would be worse if it were not for countries like the Philippines which exports large numbers of nurses around the world.

In Europe Filipino nurses can earn up to five times the salary they would get at home. This has even led to Filipino doctors retraining to become nurses so that they can get a higher paid job overseas.

One response to the shortage of nurses has been to increase the number of students and places in nursing schools. In the UK, for example, there were only 10 university-based schools of nursing in the early 1990s, now there are 72.

The authors say that producing highly qualified nurses at doctoral level is vital for the profession, producing the teachers, leaders and nursing scientists of the future.

The book 'Doctoral Education in Nursing – International Perspectives' by Hugh McKenna and Shake Ketefian, is published by Routledge.

(MB/SP)