Like so many nurses across the US, those protesting outside New York’s Maimonides Medical Center this month say the consequence of chronic understaffing isn’t just burnout for nurses – it’s dangerous for patients.
Abby Donley, a former ICU nurse who’s now a union organiser, has no shortage of stories from colleagues working dangerously long hours, or performing duties they’re not qualified to perform.
“We had dermatology residents working in our ICU, ” she told The Feed.
“We care, as a nation, about profit over the patient,” says Abby Donley.
“We care, as a nation, about profit over the patient,” says Donley.
“The pandemic did not break this system. It was broken before COVID. COVID has just accelerated this process,” she said, referring to an increasingly privatised healthcare system that Donley says “serves the interests of insurance companies and hospital administrators.”
Donley is not alone when she talks about nursing as more than just a job. All of the New York nurses who spoke with The Feed for this story described their work as part of their identity.
“Nursing is not just a career. It's not just a job. It's really a part of who I am,” says registered nurse Ledys Janett Perez.
“I used to love going to work. I would say ‘Hi!’ to everybody.
“People used to call me The Mayor. But since the beginning of the pandemic that feeling is gone. And that scares me.”
What’s it like for Australian nurses?
In Australia, a by the Australian College of Nursing and the Health Professionals Bank found that the rate of “burnout or fatigue” for nurses is around 70 per cent – a figure that has the report authors fearing an industry-wide mass exodus like we’re witnessing in the US.
“The system exploits our empathy and compassion. If someone is off, we feel guilty and just cover the shift,” a nurse from a major Sydney hospital under the condition of anonymity.
No system, it seems, has been able to devise a staffing solution that reacts to the nature of COVID-19’s spread – periods of relative calm followed by rapid outbreaks – that has proved sustainable for nursing staff.
In 2020, a month after COVID reached Australia, came out of retirement in anticipation of the healthcare system buckling under the strain. But in the early days of the pandemic, very few of those retired nurses expected the virus would continue to wreak havoc on the system for years to come. And so, the retirees-to-the-rescue solution was short-lived.
In October last year, when Melbourne was in the grip of the Delta outbreak, the Victorian state government introduced Hospital Surge Support payments after a campaign by the state's nurses union.
The allowance entitles public hospital and Ambulance Victoria workers who are face-to-face with COVID-19 patients an extra $60 per shift, and $30 for those not directly exposed to COVID-19 patients. The allowance, however, will be discontinued at the end of this month.
Last month, thousands of nurses and healthcare workers from public hospitals across NSW walked off the job demanding safer nurse-to-patient ratios and a pay increase above the government’s prescribed public sector offer of 2.5 per cent.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) called for one nurse to every four patients on every shift and a pay increase of 4.75 per cent..
At the largest of the 30 rallies across the state, the NSWNMA’s Shaye Candish announced, “We will come back bigger and angrier each time we are ignored.”
True to her word, a second 24-hr strike has been planned for this Thursday.
