When writing about the nursing emergency, I remember a conversation with a good friend who managed a large transport and logistics company for years.
He does not understand where the problem with the nursing staff shortage lies. If he had noticed that his company would have far too few truck drivers two years later, he would have made sure that more were hired, if in doubt they would have been poached elsewhere or paid more.
Despite all the enthusiasm for his assertiveness: Entrepreneurial activity in the thicket of a public law institution with a sophisticated tariff system is unfortunately very limited. What remains is the hope that the responsible ministries will grant more freedom of action in the near future.
Speaking of ministries: the establishment of a ministry for the interests of the elderly population could coordinate tasks related to demographic change.
Corona relentlessly disclosed the nursing shortage
Back to the nursing shortage: With Corona, fears spread that the nursing shortage could drastically escalate and the hospital system could collapse.
All of a sudden, politicians realized that even offering a higher salary and better working conditions would no longer suffice to reassure the nursing staff.
Perhaps there was also the fear of getting into trouble if you were to stay in hospital and of having to suffer from the shortage. It quickly became clear that more had to be done in order to avert greater damage in a situation that had meanwhile become muddled. The announcement of a special bonus didn’t help either.
Caregivers are exposed to high health risks
The media reported in January 2021 how tense the situation regarding the nursing shortage had become during the pandemic, when the Berlin Charité announced that it wanted to use resident doctors in nursing. A measure that had also been taken from time to time before, albeit more sporadically in the context of acute bottleneck situations.
The nursing staff working in the inpatient COVID-19 areas, like the other medical staff working there, care for the patients at a high medical and nursing level, despite the increased workload and the immense additional psychological burden.
We have to keep in mind that these employees came into direct contact with COVID-19 patients in 2020 and thus not only endangered their own health, without any prospect of a vaccine or a specific therapy option. They also had to deal with the risk of passing the disease on to their own family, friends or other people in need of care.
The pandemic did not leave the nursing staff unaffected
On the COVID-19 wards, especially on the COVID-19 intensive care units, the nursing staff put all their effort into patient care every day, sometimes replacing relatives due to the ban on visits and patients again and again who they had been nursing for a long time and nursed intensely, watch die.
The book by Jochen A. Werner (advertisement)
The hospital is so sick: A way to more humanity, quality and sustainability in medicine
This does not go unnoticed by the employees. When caregivers placed the deceased in the black body bags and zipped them up, it did something to them.
A number of them have accepted our various offers of help and support. But even their effect was finite. The nursing staff, especially in the intensive care units, were exhausted by the end of the second wave.
Nurse writes moving tweet
With no time to rest, the third wave of the pandemic began in March 2021. The number of patients who died from UME continued to rise. I was very touched by what one of our intensive care workers wrote on Twitter in August 2021 in response to the noticeable increase in the number of COVID-19 patients:
“Corona wave 4, I was hoping you wouldn’t come. I really thought you were sparing us. That it’s getting better now, that we’ve all learned our lesson and can carry on as before. I enjoyed the time, I think it was a few weeks, with few COVID-19 patients so much and I remembered why I always enjoyed my job so much. And suddenly I’m standing again between 2 ECMOs, 2 dialyses, 2 NO machines, 2 patients who need my attention more than the machines that keep them alive and the thought occurs to me: You’re standing in the middle of wave 4. There you are you! I heard you coming but was hoping you just sneaked by. Where do I get the strength to deal with you now? You are the wave of the unvaccinated, my hope now is that the people who were unsure will choose to be vaccinated. I refuse to accept that from now on the world will be ruled by waves that will roll over us. I can only appeal: get vaccinated, keep wearing your masks, keep your distance! Otherwise we continue to stand between ECMOs and ventilators and pray that this will be the last big wave.”
“The focus is on: please function”
Her second tweet followed in November 2021:
“How is it with you at the moment?” “Is it getting worse again?” “How many COVID patients do you have now?” “How is your psyche?” I am asked these and similar questions almost every day. I can’t hear any more about it. I smile and honestly answer every question: I remember a week in July when we had very few COVID patients. I think it was 2 or 3. A week! From 21 months. Will there be more? It was barely noticeably less. There was no time to take a deep breath, to recover. I’ve been swinging from free to free, from shift to shift, for 21 months. Just don’t think about tomorrow! Don’t think about later! The patient NOW needs NIV ventilation, he gets an ECMO NOW, he needs a CT NOW. I can hardly think any further. Do what is necessary NOW, everything can be different in 2 hours. The question of my psychological salvation gives me the most to think about. i see the change My fuse is always short, my empathy has diminished. I forget to light the candle for dead patients at home, which I used to do. I do my job and sometimes I don’t feel anything about it. No joy, no sadness, everything is overwhelmed with exhaustion. The focus is on: Please work!
A broad-based offensive against the nursing shortage is needed
“I forget to light the candle for deceased patients at home, which I always used to do.” The sentence basically says everything. The tweets made a deep impression on me, full of respect, humility and a certain feeling of powerlessness that makes me sad and angry.
Are the options for changing the situation on the part of the board of directors in our corporate structure far less than is repeatedly suggested.
At the latest when the pandemic struck, even the last person with political responsibility should have understood that we can no longer rely on profound deficits being compensated for by the increased commitment of individual members of society. We need a broad-based offensive against the nursing shortage.
The text is a copy of the book: “The hospital is so sick – a way to more humanity, quality and sustainability in medicine” by Prof. Dr. Jochen A. Werner (Klartext Verlag).
