2 Years Later: What Nurses Have Learned During The COVID-19 Era
The first case of COVID-19 was recorded on December 31st, 2019. 2 years since the first case and a pandemic later, we look back and reflect on this confusing and trying time.
It’s hard to believe that COVID-19 has been around for over 2 years. During that time, many nurses have worked in COVID-19 units, taken on contract/travel positions around the country, assisted with screening/testing of millions of patients, administered millions of vaccinations, and more.
Nurses have been hailed as heroes, while also being told to re-use our N95s, to wear a bandanas if we run out of PPE, and most recently, to start CPR on a COVID patient without putting on proper PPE. If that last sentence doesn’t make your blood boil, you probably aren’t a nurse.
So what have I learned over the past 2 years? As they say, do you want the good new or the bad news first?
I’ll start with the good. Through all of the hell that this pandemic has put us through, nurses have overwhelmingly banded together and created stronger bonds as coworkers and even as friends.
We stood by each other’s side as our patients passed away, lonely and isolated from everyone they’ve ever known. We stayed over after our shift to help the oncoming nurse. We picked up that extra shift just so our coworkers didn’t have to be short-staffed.
By all measures, nurses showed true teamwork and commitment to each other during this pandemic.
Another “good” that nurses experienced during this era was the massive wage increases that many have experienced by taking on travel contract positions.
Now, depending on who you ask, they may have a wildly different opinion on this topic. For the travelers (some of whom have tripled their salary) are likely to say this is the best benefit for them. While the staff nurses who stayed at their hospitals may tell you a different story, some of whom have seen miniscule or nonexistent raises as they watch travelers rake in the big bucks.
And the hospital administrators, who for the first time have had to increase nursing wages in order to attract nurses to their hospital, definitely hate this aspect of the pandemic.
But even if you are a nurse who hasn’t experienced a pay raise from this pandemic, it’s hard to argue that a spotlight being placed on nursing wages and the treatment of staff nurses is a bad thing.
Now for the bad news…and this won’t be surprising for any of you nurses out there. Hospital administrators, politicians, and the general public at large, STILL do not understand what we do as nurses and why we do it.
Like these folks from the Wall Street Journal, who think that nurses who get COVID simply have a “stuffy nose”, while not considering the fact that many of our patients our immunocompromised and thus should be protected from COVID positive staff, even if our symptoms are mild.
Or the hospital administrator who handed out makeup removing wipes to nurses so they could re-use their masks, without asking how they were doing.
And perhaps worst of all, our very own President, whose administration supported the recent CDC guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) removal of critical COVID protections for healthcare workers.
So with all that being said, where do we go from here? How do nurses possibly move on from this pandemic and create a meaningful future within the profession?
Well, according to a survey of critical care nurses, over 66% of nurses are considering leaving the profession. If we continue to hemorrhage good nurses from the profession, how do we ever move forward?
Well, I sure as hell don’t have the answer. But I know there are smarter nurses than me out there who will figure it out.
