RENFREY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

Renfrey Memorial Hospital



Renfrey Memorial Hospital

As the U.S. population ages the burden of chronic disease becomes more prevalent, as does the risk of entering a nursing organizations. The “oldest old” are the fastest growing segment of the population, have the greatest risk for using nursing organizations, and are expected to require the most intensive level of services. The probability of nursing organizations use for the “oldest old” is projected at 60 percent compared to 17 percent for ages 65 to 74, and among those people who enter a nursing home, 21% are expected to have a lifetime use of five years or more. Cognitive impairment is still the number one risk associated with a permanent nursing home admission, and the risk of dementia increases with age. In addition, the risk for having significant limitations in physical functioning in activities of daily living (ADLs) increases with age, and ADL impairment is also associated with increased risk for needing long-term. Finally, certain demographic changes, such as the increasing trend of single living arrangements among the elderly and lower fertility levels, which leads to fewer available family care givers, are expected to increase the need for nursing home care in the next 35 years.

Accompanying this is an increasingly deplorable crisis in healthcare human resources management in developing countries. The personnel shortage is markedly acute in rural areas, where services are needed most. Low salaries, lack of benefits, poor technology, and an unstable political environment have driven more healthcare professionals out of United States' rural areas (Narasimhan et al., 2004). Since the 1980s, many trained physicians and nurses have left the country for more lucrative employment in Canada, Europe, and various other countries, an exodus that has significantly impacted leading sectors of United States' economy.

All over the world, the health of people in the rural and remote areas is generally worse than that of city dwellers (Glasser et al., 2006; Ogunbekun et al., 1996; Wonca, 2003). In United States, the shortage of health professionals is a continuing concern for both urban and rural communities (Glasser et al., 2006). The shortage is most acute in the country's rural hospitals, where the shortage of nurses is particularly problematic (Laveedure, 2001). The shortage of qualified health professionals has led to a systematic decline in health services in the rural hospitals of Lagos State (Raufu, 2002). In the early 2000s, the ratio of nurses to patients was 1:30 (Dugger, 2004). This has become a major concern for the United States government because of increases in the rates of mortality and morbidity for vulnerable women and children (Dugger, 2004).

Dugger further found that many women die in the state's rural hospitals as a result of poor healthcare delivery from unqualified health workers. The lack of qualified doctors and nurses is due in part to the attitudes of United States medical students toward rural medical practice (Brieger, 1979). According to Nullis-Kapp (2005), the government officials warned that the shortage of health professionals could undermine global efforts to ...