二十一世紀台灣護理面對的挑戰

Since the implementation of the national budget-based reimbursement plan by Taiwan's National Health Insurance, nursing manpower has largely reduced across all medical facilities. The problem was further exacerbated by the fact that there had been an oversupply of nurses in the labor market. As a result, nurses in Taiwan today are facing a situation where the salary scale and the workload are disproportionate. In addition, recent highly publicized malpractice incidents and deliberate epidemics of emerging infectious diseases have made the nurse's job risk subject to unprecedented impact.
The most important question that nurses face now is how to turn this crisis into an opportunity. This paper will discuss how to recreate the professional value of nursing for the 21st century by reviewing the past, examining the current situation, and visualize the future. The author addresses five major issues that the nursing profession needs to tackle and provides insights into strategies that can help deal with these issues.
The five major issues are: (1) the nursing education problem, (2) the supply and demand problem of nursing manpower, (3) the lack of political sensitivity among nurses, (4) increasing the professional capability of nurses, and (5) the irreplaceability of the nursing profession.