Many of the nation's nurses are spread too thin, assigned too many patients. Here are some of the tasks nurses say regularly get skipped or delayed:

• Providing medicines within one hour of the correct time.

• Helping weak or disabled patients go to the restroom and promptly cleaning those who soil themselves.

• Making sure patients have adequate pain relief.

• Doing thorough evaluations and follow-up checks on all patients, especially listening to critical lung and heart sounds.

• Helping patients who require feeding when no aides are available.

• Checking intravenous lines for leaks or skin damage.

• Giving baths and other hygiene care.

• Comforting distraught, lonely patients.

• Teaching patients and their family how to deal with an illness when they go home.

• Helping hospital staff plan follow-up treatment or home care.

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Sources: AP interviews, AFT Healthcare union survey of nurses.