Nurses ‘Burned Out’ Nationwide as Americans Fail to Protect from COVID-19

Nurse Alice Benjamin joins “Start Your Day” host Sharon Reed from Los Angeles to shed some light on what’s happening in hospitals across the country amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Hospitals nationwide are running out of beds and staff, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 37 and a half million positive COVID-19 tests. States such as Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oregon are so overwhelmed, they’re having to treat patients in hallways and parking lots. Benjamin said she, along with many of her colleagues, are getting burned out and even deciding to leave the bedside. She added that nurses make up 90% of the healthcare workforce and are crucial to the healthcare environment, but they’re experiencing a lot of compassion fatigue.

“Nurses, we have a lot of compassion, we’ll take care of you [and] we’ll do anything to keep you alive,” said Benjamin. “Eighteen months in, when we know there are interventions and things that you can do but are deciding not to, it’s starting to wear us down, because it didn’t have to be this way.” While the feeling isn’t personal, she says healthcare professionals are facing a difficult job and losing patience with Americans making a conscious decision to not get vaccinated, even though science has proven they work and it keeps you out of the hospital. Benjamin added that no amount of nursing school or training could have prepared anyone for a crisis as dire as COVID-19.

All this and more on “Start Your Day.”

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