COVID-19 has impacted everyone around the world; whether that be businesses, jobs or job availability. Medical centers and hospitals have been all over the news with nurses quitting and in need of staff to keep the doors open. But many times, nursing homes get overlooked in the process.
Many instances in 2021, the nursing staff has run out of supplies and more important, hands to help in the homes. Nurses are burnt out, stressed and in need of some time to catch up on their sleep or even to see relatives. It is a lot of responsibility to endure and maintain the safety of themselves but also their patients. They get overworked to the point where they see that their only option is to quit. According to npr.org, “You can see it in people’s eyes – the tiredness, the exhaustion,” said Jenna Szymanski, a nurse at the Good Samaritan Society’s Luther Manor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Another big problem in this particular section of nursing is that everything is related to each other and problems like these cause cracks in the system. Staffing shortages make the availability for the nursing homes to be open, causing a ripple effect in the business. If people do not supply the staff in nursing homes or hospitals, they cannot open their doors to help people in need. Causing an even bigger strike in the number of deaths no matter the age.
But COVID-19 took the deaths to another level. Deaths in nursing homes have accounted for 31% of the total deaths in 2021, according to kff.org. Due to the pandemic and the shutdown in the spring, patients were forced into lockdown. This caused many of the already vulnerable patients to spread the virus quicker because they were in such close proximity to their fellow patients.
But now nursing homes are still having problems in the system due to the impact COVID-19 has made. There is not enough staff to meet the demand of patients needing care, let alone the financial cost of keeping the staff employed.
In the end, nursing home needs and problems get swept under the rug with all of the big headlines on the news about hospitals in need or Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. But these are problems that cannot be swept under the rug any longer, so how about we start dealing with problems in the system?