02/25/2021
The pandemic has made existing problems worse, nurses say. The nurses quit for different reasons: Unsupportive workplaces, overwhelming stress, the fear of bringing Covid-19 home to their families.
But it wasn't unusual for US nurses to consider quitting even before the pandemic. "Covid has exacerbated all the problems that we know exist in a for-profit health care system," said Jean Ross, president of the National Nurses United, one of the country's largest nurses unions.
Before Covid-19, Ross said, nurses were increasingly told to "do more with less" -- cover more hospital beds, handle more patients and work longer hours. Employers pointed to the nationwide nursing shortage. Even though there were more than 3 million nurses in the US workforce in 2019, the field isn't growing at the same pace as the aging population that needs their care, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Burnout was the primary factor driving nurses to quit before the pandemic, according to a study published this month in the journal Health Policy. Of the more than 418,000 registered nurses who quit their jobs in 2017, more than 30% of them said they left because of burnout, citing stressful work environments and inadequate staffing.
A nurse for 50 years refused to retire when the pandemic began. She later died from Covid-19 A nurse for 50 years refused to retire when the pandemic began. She later died from Covid-19 Many nurses feel they can't provide the best care when they're stretched so thin, Ross said.
Such was the case for Megan Chao Smith, a nurse in Minneapolis who before the pandemic worked on an end-stage heart failure floor. Nurses there helped their patients eat, breathe and use the restroom, among other basic functions. When her hospital cut staff, her workload doubled, and she said she often had to be in two rooms at once to keep her patients alive.
"If we were split in half it still would've been too much work," she told CNN. Working on that floor drained her. She couldn't sleep or exercise or be present with her wife and child when her workday ended. She loved her job, but she couldn't leave it at the hospital.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/us/nurses-quit-hospitals-covid-pandemic-trnd/index.html
America's nurses are running on empty almost one year into the pandemic. They've reused PPE, canceled PTO and worked extended shifts for employers they don't always feel value their safety. It's driven many nurses to quit.
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