In the herculean effort to vaccinate America, the emphasis so far has been on trying to increase the number of vaccine doses available. Soon there could be a shortfall in people to administer the shots.
Carmela Coyle, who represents California’s hospitals in the state Capitol, is a power player whose clout has grown during the pandemic. Though she hasn’t won every battle, she has helped shape the state’s response to the crisis.
As covid patients flood California emergency rooms, hospitals are increasingly desperate to find enough staffers to care for them all. But some nurses worry hospitals will use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently roll back their hard-won nurse-patient ratios.
Many front-line health workers who have faced a perpetual lack of PPE and inconsistent safety measures believe the government and their employers have failed to protect them from covid-19.
Yolanda Coar was 40 when she died of COVID-19 in August 2020 in Augusta, Georgia. She was also a nurse manager, and one of nearly 3,000 frontline workers who have died in the U.S. fighting this virus, according to an exclusive investigation by The Guardian and KHN.
Hospitals are in better shape now than in the spring, with more knowledge of how to handle COVID-19 and bigger stockpiles of protective equipment. Still, nurses worry about staffing shortages and unfilled jobs.
COVID-19’s toll weighs heavily on nurses, who can suffer stress and other psychological problems if they don’t believe they are able to help their patients sufficiently.
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.