Vic: Academic warns ag

AAP General News (Australia)
04-13-2004
Vic: Academic warns ag

A leading academic warns that a government push to abolish nurse-patient ratios in
Victorian hospitals could cost lives.

Professor SIOBAN NELSON says international research shows the risk of patient death
rises by seven per cent for each additional patient over four patients per nurse.

There's an existing ratio of five nurses for every 20 patients in Victoria's hospitals.

But the government wants to replace the ratio with a computerised staffing system based
on the illness of patients.

Professor NELSON, the head of nursing at Melbourne University, says an increase in
nurses' workloads will lead to more complications and treatment mistakes.

She says this is confirmed in a study of hospitals in the United States, Canada, England,
Scotland and Germany.

However, a spokesman for Health Minister BRONWYN PIKE says the replacement of ratios
with a so-called patient dependency system would actually increase patient safety.

AAP RTV bp/gfr/as/rp

KEYWORD: NURSES VIC (MELBOURNE)

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