Pandemic making nursing shortage a crisis in St. Louis

[bronxiteforever]

Published: Oct. 3, 2021 at 2:16 PM EDT|Updated: 46 minutes ago
ST. LOUIS (AP) - The relentless toll of the pandemic has worsened the ongoing nursing shortage at St. Louis area hospitals.


… Over the past decade, the nation’s nursing shortage has been growing but now with the number of nurses leaving the profession during the pandemic, it’s turning into a crisis, nurses and hospital administrators say to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Turnover became heavy last fall and winter during the surge of COVID-19 patients. Now after so many people refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, the number of hospitalizations has surged again with the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the virus.

Mercy is losing about 160 nurses a month out of the 8,500 working in the Chesterfield-based system’s hospitals and clinics across Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma, said Betty Jo Rocchio, Mercy’s chief nursing officer. Filling the openings with new hires or travelers is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in rural areas.

… Jeremy Fotheringham, president of eight SSM Health St. Louis-area hospitals, said the shortage is “severe,” with about 80 out of 5,500 system nurses leaving each month. He and other hospital officials are in constant communication about how to make sure they are able to care for everyone.

https://www.ky3.com/2021/10/03/pandemic-making-nursing-shortage-crisis-st-louis/

[tulipsandroses]

1. That is going to be played out all across the country

Hospitals are being over burdened. Nurses cannot continue to work under these conditions. You cannot care for 2-3 times the amount of patients you normally do, and do that without care being negatively affected somewhere. Last year this time, it was mostly unavoidable. At this time, there’s just no excuse. Not only are these dimwits spreading COVID to others, their selfishness is indirectly causing the deaths of others because they are filling up hospitals when they get COVID. People with other illnesses have to suffer because of them. Depending on where you live, if you have a heart attack, stroke or traumatic injury from an accident, you may be SOL trying to get an ICU bed.