XAVIER JACKSON

Nurses are tired of being called heroic. Stop calling us heroes and try to really hear what we have been telling you.

Nurses are feeling overworked, undervalued, pushed aside and gaslighted. We appreciate being consistently voted the most trusted profession in America, but what we really need now is to be heard.

We, trusted guardians of America’s wellbeing, have been screaming that no one should feel comfortable with the state of our nation’s health-care system for years. This essential component of our society is collapsing into disarray and little is being done to alter the trajectory. Nurses are sounding the alarm, though no one is listening.

Nurses have been going on strike across the country, including 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees who recently walked off the job on the West Coast. Their biggest concern was not for themselves, rather their list of grievances was topped by a decline in the quality of care they provide for you, the patient.

Sinking feeling

They felt like failures because many things are beyond their control, primarily, inadequate staffing in order to increase profits. I have felt that way myself when placed under expectations that were not reasonable for a mere mortal. Patients wait weeks to see doctors or for tests and procedures. Simple things like getting a prescription refilled can quickly devolve into an unmanageable circus.

A physician’s assistant told me she recently had to see more than 50 patients in one eight-hour shift. She wears neither cape nor tights and is considering a career change. The sharp decline in the quality of health-care services in recent years is undeniable.

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a body blow to nurses from which the entire profession is still trying to regain its balance. Many nurses retired. Among these were the last vestiges of the veteran nurses who were willing to train new nurses how to do the job.

That loss is dearly felt. Those teachers and mentors augmented the training from nursing school in a way that catalyzed the application of those delicate, newly learned skills. There are fewer nurses with the time or the willingness to share their experience these days due to being constantly overwhelmed.

Body blow

Think of the hospital as a factory that repairs intricate pieces of machinery. What would happen to the quality of work at that factory if half the supervisors suddenly retired? Who would teach new workers how to actually execute the steps they learned in the classroom? The competency level of the entire factory would decline.

The employers would have to promote inexperienced workers to supervisory roles. One could expect an increase in mistakes from the employees until their new skills became intuitive. This is especially true of nursing, where the subtle changes in condition we report are the difference between life and death for you, the patient.

Experienced nurses will point out the many ways the job has changed. The Affordable Care Act sharply increased the number of patients able to access care. Many of these had poorly managed, chronic issues such as diabetes and hypertension that quickly devolved into much more serious health concerns.

Workloads increased, along with work-related injuries. More nurses risked physical harm trying to handle morbidly obese patients or those who are physically awkward due to contractures and skeletal malformations without help. It is never easy to find an extra set of hands and there is seemingly never enough time to finish your work.

Hard life

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing reports that almost 900,000, or nearly one-fifth of registered nurses, intend to leave the workforce by 2027. There are also studies that estimate as many as 33% of new nurses will leave the business within two years of finishing nursing school.

The stress and burnout of nursing has become too extraordinary a burden for ordinary people to bear. As I write these words I am aware that my chief concern is not for myself or the tribe of professionals I love and represent. I am writing this to you, the patients and the people we serve.

America’s health-care system must have the sacred trust between patients and nurses.

The fallout from this decline is far reaching. Hospitals have had to close units and ration care. Some rural hospitals have had to close altogether, limiting access to health care for local residents because people have to travel farther to get treatment. Some of these closed hospitals were the major employers for the communities they served, creating economic instability. The damage is exponential.

Hospitals continue to cut staff to increase profitability, which forces unsafe nursing-to-patient ratios upon them. This comes in the wake of the dehumanizing and savage beating nurses endured at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic everyone is so desperate to forget.

Indifference

There is no evidence that we learned anything from all that suffering from not very long ago. The pandemic was not a ripple. It was a tsunami from which the healthcare system has not recovered.

The chief executives of America’s largest health systems have enjoyed skyrocketing salaries. They conjure unrealistic staffing grids and rigid protocols that put patients at risk without consulting the nurses who will have to carry them out. Their entire focus is on the comfort of their cushy offices with one eye on their personal bank accounts and the other on the stock price.

The emotional weight of caring for you, the patient, is seldom felt in the board room. Nurses have long shouldered that burden. We are saying the status quo is unsustainable because we do not have the resources and personnel to provide quality care for you, the patient.

Through no fault of our own we are repeatedly forced to bear witness as you, the patient, fights to live … and loses.

All of this has resulted in a rising bitterness among nurses who now, endangers the entire health-care system. These issues have been known for a long while. Nurses have endured despite being ignored. America needs to finally listen to those presently sounding the alarm.

Otherwise the heroes who nurtured this country through COVID-19, at tremendous personal cost, may not be around for the next pandemic.

And there will be another pandemic.