SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMANS OF THE YEAR: FIRST RESPONDERS
LAWTON – Nurses continue to face a crisis that centers on the COVID-19 pandemic, burnout and a shortage of qualified health care professionals who also continue to care for the patients.
Instead of the typical three, 12-hour shifts per week, nurses are working four or five 12-hour shifts and it’s causing emotional, physical and psychological
Issues that are difficult to resolve in the middle of a global medical emergency, said Melissa Alvillar, administrative director of nursing operations at Comanche County Memorial Hospital.
“We’re staffed for 155 patients, but we’re not staffed for 160, 170 or 180 patients,” she said. “To make it worse, COVID patients are more physically demanding because it takes several nurses to turn them. There’s a lot of lifting and tugging involved and that goes on all day. Then, nurses are having to change in and out of PPE (personal protective equipment) when they enter and leave a room.”
The increased number of COVID deaths has proven to be completely draining for nurses.
“Nurses don’t come to work to watch people die,” Alvillar said. “Patients are coding over and over. Nurses come to work to help people get better so they can go home to their families. We have to worry about the effects of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for some of these nurses. People in their 40s and 50s are dying and they’re younger than some of the nurses.”
Many nurses have routinely found themselves in the roles of counselor and, in many cases, the last person to hold the dying patient’s hand. The situation, Alvillar said, isn’t getting better. Comanche County Memorial Hospital is admitting about 30 new patients a day while discharging 22.
“We’re holding a minimum of 10 patients a day in the ER. There are no beds available, so nurses everywhere are overworked,” she said.
Comanche County Memorial Hospital administrators are trying to assist the nursing staff by paying COVID-19 nurses financial incentives and providing their meals.
Alvillar is hoping the vaccinations administered to frontline workers and nurses last week will create a reduction in COVID-19 patients.
“We’re praying that happens,” she said. “The staff can’t physically keep up this pace.”
Community members have begun donating food to the hospital’s nurses and staff.
“It happened before when COVID first hit and then it trailed off. Now, members of the community are doing it again. It’s uplifting to the staff that they’re appreciated for what they’re doing when they’re away from their families,” Alvillar said.
FINDING SUPPORTIVE CARE
From the outside, nurses are typically viewed as strong, capable medical professionals who will work at all costs to care for their patients. As with CCMH, nurses at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, the entire crisis has taken its toll.
Cathy Pierce, chief nursing officer at OU Medical Center, said nurses are working in a difficult situation to provide care for patients whose families can’t be present due to hospital restrictions.
“As you can imagine, it’s very difficult for someone to pass away and their loved ones can’t be there. It’s tough on the families and (medical) providers,” she said.
Non-clinical staff members are being asked to perform non-clinical duties such as answering phones, stocking supplies and picking up food trays so nurses can devote all of their time and attention to patients. At the same time, nurses also are looking out for one another.
“I think what I’ve seen are the resilience nurses have,” said Pierce. “No matter how difficult the call of duty is, they are supporting each other. You can’t fully understand each individual going through this. It’s very difficult.”
As nurses deal with the daily care of patients, OU’s hospital administrators are forming chaplain services for individual nurses and teams and a hotline for employees who need to talk about a specific situation. In addition, the hospital has created locations for “quiet places” where employees can go before or after their shifts. The locations in the hospital provide soft background music and aromatherapy.
“These nurses are courageous,” Pierce said. “They have an overwhelming commitment to providing compassionate care and they’re resilient in their support of each other.”
Pierce also stressed that community members can support the nursing staffs at all hospitals by wearing masks, socially distancing, regular handwashing and remaining at home when sick or with symptoms.
REASONABLE FEAR
From the beginning of the pandemic, nurses have found it difficult to work, but they continued anyway. The American Nurses Association conducted a survey in March–April 2020 of 32,000 nurses and found that 87% feared going to work, 36% have cared for an infectious patient without having adequate PPE, and only 11% believed they were well-prepared to care for patients with COVID-19.
At the same time, those nurses reported an urgent need for training on caring for these patients, PPE use, and personal safety.
While showing compassionate care for their patients, nurses have subjected themselves to the virus, which has proven deadly for many. The International Council of Nurses’ (ICN) latest analysis shows that the number of nurses who have died after contracting COVID-19 is 1,500, up from 1,097 in August. The figure, which includes nurses from only 44 of the world’s 195 countries, is known to be an underestimate of the true numbers of deaths.
In October, ICN Chief Executive Officer Howard Catton said as many nurses have died from the COVID-19 pandemic as those who died during World War I.
It’s unclear the number of U.S. nurses who have died from the COVID-19 virus, but the National Nurses Union reported in September that more than 1,700 health care workers have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of those 1,700 deaths, more than 200 nurses were included.
According to NNA’s statement, the data demonstrate the government’s lack of reporting requirements and its inability to track health care worker deaths, as well as failures by health systems to provide protection for frontline workers.