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Traumatized and tired, nurses are quitting due to the pandemic

Traumatized and tired, nurses are quitting due to the pandemic

Traumatized and tired, nurses are quitting due to the pandemic
Feb 25, 2021 3 mins, 31 secs

CNN spoke to three nurses from Florida, Oklahoma and Minnesota about why they quit their hospital jobs.

"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.

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.

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.

Many nurses feel they can't provide the best care when they're stretched so thin, Ross said.

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.

Another survey, from the American Nurses Association's Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation project, found that at least 69% of US nurses said they agree or strongly agree that they put their patients' health and safety before their own.

That selflessness is not sustainable, said Stephanie Zerwas, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who established a free therapy program for health care workers during the pandemic.

"I think a lot of nurses got into nursing to serve," Zerwas told CNN.

And although there's more hope now as health care workers and their older, at-risk patients get vaccinated, most nurses still feel worn down, Zerwas said.

"It's this unrelenting grind," she said.

The hallmark of pain is just that you feel like it's never going to end."

That grind could drive even more nurses to quit, worsening the nationwide nursing shortage -- and worsening the burden on the nurses who remain.

Some nurses feel unsupported by their workplaces

In the pandemic's early days, Denise Keeley, a military veteran and nurse of 40 years, was practically begging the managers at her Oklahoma City hospital for answers about how to protect herself and how Covid would affect her work.

Conditions were dire for nurses at her hospital, she said.

"All you want to do is take care of the patients, and then some patients would be like, 'Is everything OK?'" she said.

"That's the worst thing a nurse wants to hear, that you think something is wrong with me, 'cause I want to take care of you."

One night in the summer, while she sat in her car waiting for her night shift to begin, she had an inkling that her fears about her unit accepting Covid-19 patients had come true.

Staff told nurses at Chao Smith's hospital many of the same things Keeley heard: Nurses shouldn't wear masks because it could "scare people," and if they did have masks, they'd reuse them until the fell apart, she said.

The nurses association survey from December found many other nurses feel the same -- about 27% of respondents said they disagreed with the statement that their employers valued their physical health and safety.

Nurses, Zerwas said, are human, with foibles and feelings that can impact their work.

And like the rest of us who don't work in medicine, nurses need the support of their communities and workplaces to keep going, she said.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Zerwas said many nurses found motivation in the nationwide shows of support and gratitude for frontline workers -- the nightly rounds of applause across cities, car parades, casseroles and thank-you cards.

Zerwas said she's heard from nurses who steer clear of social media, where they might've found a community of other nurses to vent to, because their friends will share photos of themselves maskless, socializing indoors or in a large group.

Coming into close contact with the sick has forced many nurses to live apart from their families and loosen the social ties that had buoyed them before, Zerwas said.

The nurses who quit still feel guilty

All three nurses told CNN they shouldered immense guilt for quitting, even months later.

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