B.C. to become first province to set patient ratios for nurses

B.C. will become the first province in Canada to set rules governing how many patients each nurse can take care of, in an effort to keep burnt-out nurses from leaving the profession.

It will mean spending $750 million over the next three years to hire thousands more nurses to prop up an understaffed workforce.

The B.C. Nurses’ Union called the nurse-to-patient ratios groundbreaking.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said the move will improve patient care, reduce nurses’ workloads, increase safety, and keep nurses in the health-care system. The new ratios will apply in hospitals, in long-term and residential care, and to nurses working in the community and non-hospital care settings.

In B.C., the nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals will be 1-to-1 for critical-care patients on ventilators, 1-to-2 for critical-care patients not on ventilators or those needing high-dependency mental-health care, 1-to-3 for specialized care, 1-to-4 for in-patient and palliative care and 1-to-5 for rehabilitative care.