"Taylor Critendon, a nurse for five years in the ICU, describes the current situation as a “nightmare.” She says, “Our biggest concern is patient safety.” Nurses are taking on five to eight cases at a time – for comparison, California has legally required minimum nurse- to-patient ratios of 1:5 for general medical-surgical wards, 1:4 in ERs, and 1:2 or fewer for critical care units. Understaffing deteriorates the quality of care that each individual receives. Critendon says the current ratios are “profit-motivated – the more patients that one nurse can take, the more money that a hospital is saving on having to pay more nurses.”
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2023-06-01/ascension-union-initiates-largest-nurses-strike-in-texas-history/