Bigger nurse patient loads result in more hospital deaths

Nursing cutbacks have been found to be directly linked to higher death rates in hospitals.
A new European study says every extra patient added to a nurse workload increases the number of deaths within a month of surgery by 7 percent.
It also showed that for every 10 percent jump in nurses with bachelor’s degrees there is a 7 percent drop in deaths.
DCU Professor Anne Scott led the Irish part of the study. She says a significant number of nurses do not have that standard of education.
“There’s obviously a large number of nurses in the system either qualified pre-2006 or indeed maybe Irish nurses who have trained elsewhere and come back who would not have degree level education” she said.
” And I guess what this study is pointing up and confirming is that the association between degree-level education or higher, and better patient outcome” she added.