Rights and Responsibilities for a Member of the Nursing Union in Minnesota recent MSNBC Health article on the state of the nation's health noted that despite the nation's joblessness crisis, nursing remains woefully understaffed as a profession across the nation. The current shortage of a few hundred thousand RNs could reach a staggering 750,000 by 2020, given the aging population and rate of retirement in the 'Baby Boom' generation. The danger of this scenario, of a rapidly aging population and a rapidly retiring nursing profession, is highlighted by a recent lawsuit waged against the Wesley Hospital in Kansas in July of 2000. There, a jury awarded a $2.7 million malpractice settlement to the family of a woman who almost died due to chronic nursing understaffing at the hospital. Thus, the nursing shortage has costs for both hospitals as well as patients that could prove disastrous. (Johnson, 2004) shortage of nurses is a factor in about one-fourth of patient injuries or deaths in hospitals, according to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' 2002 report. A 2002 study by Harvard and Vanderbilt university researchers, examining millions of 1997 hospital cases, found preventable deaths and patient complication rates were up to nine times higher in hospitals where the most care was given by licensed practical nurses and aides, not better-trained RNs. For each additional patient over four assigned to a nurse, the risk of dying after surgery rose 7%, according to a 2002 survey of 168 Pennsylvania hospitals by Linda Aiken, director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing....
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