Covid Fatigue Is Real!
The number of nurses in acute care is dropping as they are leaving the profession in droves.
It is scary to think that we’ve had a nurse shortage even before the CV-19 pandemic erupted but we now are seeing nurses walking away from their careers in even larger numbers. Today’s nurses have never faced such devastation, disease, and death in their lives.
When there is a mass shooting or similar high-volume casualty catastrophe, the clergy, social workers, mental health providers and caretakers are brought in to help those witnesses or those who are aware of the situation deal with their feelings. However, this is not true with nurses. When 5 patients code and die on a shift, there is no clergy or support for the direct caregivers.
A nurse at the frontline of fighting the COVID epidemic is not likely getting the mental health breaks that they so badly deserve. In fact, there are incidences where nurses aren’t even being paid for time off when they have been exposed to COVID or are showing symptoms. If this is the case with you, please contact a Workers Compensation attorney.
As hospitals are filled with sicker and sicker patients, who is available to help our nurses?
Since there is relatively little help for us, we must help ourselves. This means all the things that you know to do and teach everyone else. But we nurses tend to sacrifice ourselves to take care of everyone else because the patients depend on us.
If nurses are not there to do their job, and don’t have the mental stamina to do their tasks well, it’s our individual licenses that could be on the line.
Should you be having trouble sleeping, are irritable, stressed and feel like you can no longer take the pressure any more …GET THE HELP THAT YOU NEED!
Go to your EAP and find a mental health provider. Many are doing it by phone, without hesitation, find the support you need and take the time off to tend to yourself.
Although we may seem to believe ourselves to be superhuman, we are not! The lives of countless patients depend on us and, if we not there to fully do the job expected of us, then we are the ones who suffer.
Please let my message here serve as “a wake-up call” that stress and burnout are just as deadly as the COVID. Please take care of your community, your patients, your family, and yourself. Everyone is relying on you.
