The healthcare industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Now, more than ever, we need support. We are sick of words like unprecedented and phrases like now, more than ever.
Nationwide, the healthcare sector has experienced a workforce loss of close to 25% during a pandemic which is not over. More than 50% of the workforce that remains is considering its exit strategy.
As a nurse, I will speak to what I know.
Nationwide, nurses are tired of working under crippling, unreasonable state and federal regulations. They are tired of being assaulted at work by patients, families, and coworkers. They are tired of going twelve hours without water, food, or bathroom breaks. They are tired of being asked by society to be an insufficient and ineffective band-aid for a healthcare system whose infrastructure has been broken for decades and crumbling for years.
Seasoned nurses are retiring a decade sooner than anticipated, and new nurses are the most likely to leave the profession. Even if there were enough nursing programs out there (there are not) to produce an overwhelming crop of fresh and eager talent, the need for experienced nurses is statistically critical, exponentially greater than any solution presented thus far. Time and experience are the greatest teachers, and we’ve run out of both.
These are the darkest days I’ve seen in my career.
And so I will continue to go to work each day, fighting for a better future for nurses and the way we deliver healthcare. My weapons are transparency, creativity, tenacity, and hope. Because hope is a strategy some days, especially on the darkest ones.
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