The Sars-Cov2 virus took the world by storm when it caused a state of a pandemic in the latter half of 2019. COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic in March 2020 and ever since we have not been able to experience a situation we used to call ‘normal’ before the pandemic hit.
American Hospitals Are Facing Staff Shortages Amidst The Omicron Wave
First detected in the Chinese province of Wuhan, this virus has hugely altered the path of life. It is strange how something that cannot even be seen by the naked eye can cause massive destruction in people’s lives and change it permanently.
COVID-19 is characterized by symptoms like cold and cough, fever, body ache, joint pain, chills, diarrhea, etc. Some symptoms of COVID-19 are mild and treatable at home, while other symptoms may cause the situation of hospitalization. The first wave of the disease had people rushing to the hospital when they fell sick.
Hospital beds were full and patients were overflowing out of hospitals. There weren’t enough doctors or medicines available to treat the massive number of patients. In grave cases, people lost their lives due to a lack of medical treatment. Since then, vaccines have been distributed and more than 50% of the American population has been vaccinated. Vaccinations have helped protect people from the disease and prevent death in most cases.
All this while, the healthcare system has had to work extremely hard and push its limits to serve people. These frontline workers have given their all in fighting this pandemic. Without them, the situation would have been way worse than it is.
But all of this overtime work and stress of fighting a deadly disease has taken a toll on the medical staff in the US. In a survey carried out in April 2021, 55% of healthcare workers reported feeling burnt out. This is one of the leading causes of the current staff shortage faced by many hospitals across the US.
And now, with what is possibly the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US is not facing a shortage of beds but a shortage of medical staff. The staff shortage problem is getting more and more serious as the more infectious variant keeps affecting thousands of people every day.
As infection rates are on the rise due to the Omicron variant, many healthcare workers have contracted the virus which has affected their ability to serve other patients struggling in hospitals. Many doctors and nurses have had to isolate and quarantine themselves and are struggling with symptoms like body ache and joint pain, commonly seen in Omicron-affected patients.
Although these symptoms are mostly mild, the Omicron variant spreads at a rapid rate, because of which many hospital staff members have fallen sick at the same time, causing a staff shortage.
Rising cases have put the US healthcare system under tremendous pressure. The doctor and nurses are already weary from working around the clock since the beginning of the pandemic, so it is understandable that healthcare workers are fatigued and cannot physically push themselves to work more.
In such a situation of staff shortage, hospitals may have to call retired healthcare workers to join the force temporarily till things get settled. The situation is looking grave as there is not enough medical staff available to treat patients. A surgeon may not be able to operate with the lack of support staff, which causes significant delay in patient’s treatment.
The staff shortage problem in US hospitals has serious implications for its citizens. Omicron infections among healthcare workers have significantly reduced the number of available medical staff who are being put under tremendous pressure in an already challenging environment.
