One of coronavirus pandemic's most critical shortages: Not. Enough. Nurses. They are burned out.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

David Fahrenthold Retweeted

NEW: One of coronavirus pandemic's most critical shortages: Not. Enough. Nurses. They are burned out. Some are leaving their jobs to care for children who cannot attend school. Some have fallen sick. Others are just getting out.
@lennymbernstein

Link to tweet

[underpants]

1. Horrible. Not surprising especially in rural areas

What did I hear this morning - a nurse in North Dakota triaging and treating 600 people by phone. I think that’s right.

[Aristus]

2. As thrashed as I get at my job as a Physician Assistant,

there's no way in the world I could do my job effectively, if at all, without allied health personnel.

We have Medical Assistants, but they rock just as hard as nurses.

They have my undying respect...

[lettucebe]

3. I believe the country was having a nurse shortage before this started

Though it's been awhile, I'm sure I read about that a couple years ago. Imagine the shortage now? You cannot train in a few months to be a highly skilled nurse, especially an ICU nurse, so this is going to be a problem for quite some time.

The fact that it's world-wide doesn't help either. No nurse candidates from other countries will be clamoring to come to the US for a chance to get Covid-19. I'm sick with fear for the nurses in our family.

[RussBLib]

4. and you cannot just use the Defense Authorization Act

to create more nurses.

You could, however, incentivize becoming a nurse, by increasing their pay and benefits, while lowering the barriers to becoming a nurse.

[Lars39]

5. And how many people are signing up to become nurses etc?

I expect those numbers to go down.

[AZ8theist]

6. The shortage of nurses PALES in comparison to the lack of....

intelligence of half the population in the country that refuse to wear masks or take any precautions at all.

My daughter is a nurse. I worry about her every day. Every minute.