Government Recommendations

1.1 Governments at both national and provincial levels promote the management of fatigue in health-care work environments by:

a) Providing sufficient economic and human resources within the work environment to prevent and mitigate fatigue.

b) Providing funding to support mandatory education for practicing nurses, nurse managers, nursing students and nurse educators about the causes of fatigue and its negative impacts on patients and nurses.

c) Providing funding to ensure that adequate physical infrastructure is available to support areas for nurses to rest during scheduled breaks. This means including designated space for rest in all new building designs and providing funding to renovate existing facilities.

d) Increasing nursing school enrolment and funding to so that there will be sufficient numbers of graduates in the future to ensure appropriate nurse to patient ratios in health-care settings.

e) Providing financial support to nursing faculties to manage increased enrolment in graduate nursing programs.