Health workers speak out under devastating conditions of rising “triple epidemic” in the US and Canada
A wave of infections is sweeping across North America, stressing the already overstretched health care system and stretching health care personnel to the limit. COVID-19, in combination with RSV and influenza, constitute the “triple threat” that is creating deadly and unsustainable conditions in pediatric and adult hospitals alike.
The most recent data shows that average daily cases of COVID-19 in the US have risen nearly 40 percent in the past two weeks, with deaths also up 25 percent. And just about two months into the traditional flu season, cases and hospitalizations have already far exceeded pre-pandemic numbers.
Many hospitals are more than 100 percent full. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are struggling to handle the rush of patients coming through emergency room doors, many of whom need hospital beds. Nursing homes are also understaffed and many residents are being affected by respiratory viruses.
A West Coast Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), who chose to remain anonymous, summed up the situation she and her coworkers face in a long-term care facility in an interview with world socialist website reporters
This CNA said: “COVID everywhere, flu everywhere, every other illness imaginable from stomach colds and bed bugs everywhere… I am doing the best I can, but at the same time I am counting the days until I inevitably get sick or try to take care of someone. and realize that they are dead. My residents are between the ages of 70 and 95, but that’s no reason to ignore the last chapter of their lives and how they spend it, and I’ve heard numerous co-workers refer to my wing as the ‘death wing’ in recent years. days”.
These conditions are a direct result of the government’s disastrous health care and pandemic policies. The decision, not based on a thread of scientific evidence, to abandon the most minimal protection measures —such as face masks, isolation and contact tracing—, as well as the opening of schools and the return to face-to-face work, has intensified infections and reinfections. . Some of the most vulnerable in the country are particularly affected: children, the elderly, and the chronically ill and immunocompromised.
Despite President Biden’s declaration that “the pandemic is over,” rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 are currently rising, as seen in recent data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. This data shows the 7-day average of hospitalizations at 40,413, compared to a 7-day average of 27,880 hospitalizations in Thanksgiving week.
Deaths are also increasing from a 7-day average of 299 deaths Thanksgiving week to the current 7-day average of 425 deaths. All of these numbers are likely underestimates, as many states no longer track daily deaths and cases or report the numbers regularly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Over the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to exacerbate already poor health care conditions. The ongoing battle on the front lines, without a systematic approach to contain the virus with basic public health measures, has left workers exhausted and pushed many to abandon healthcare altogether.
Healthcare workers from across the country and from all disciplines spoke to WSWS reporters on social media. Many shared similar themes of burnout, supply shortages and anger over healthcare inequality, with CEOs continuing to live comfortably while workers bear the brunt of the crisis and are left to fend for themselves, running with smoke. and taking home wages that lag behind. behind rising inflation.
A nurse practitioner in the southern US, who chose to remain anonymous, painted a picture of the real damage caused by understaffing and overcrowding in hospitals. She told the WSWS: “There are so many stories. I recently walked in on a patient who had been on dialysis who had blood coming out of his access. The patient was ‘left’ without [a] bedside report because the nurse had six other patients and the dialysis nurse had to go back to her patient, who was being watched by another nurse who had two patients running.”
A Canadian nurse who currently works in a long-term care facility described her daily conditions. She said: “Tonight I am going to be the only nurse in a two-story building with 95 residents. I have two HCA [health care assistants] on one floor and three on the other.
“As far as COVID, we are just coming out of our third or fourth outbreak. We don’t really test people like we used to anymore. There are many residents with symptoms at this time, but those who test them are negative. We have had to send two to [hospital] in less than 24 hours, one with pneumonia and I don’t know the second. I had to send them at 6:45 this morning.”
In response to a question about burnout, he stated: “We were not prepared for a pandemic. … Our first outbreak … lasted for over a month and we lost almost a quarter of our residents. We were running out of supplies, ambulances were behind schedule, even other residences had to call the military or someone for help. There were times when I was the only nurse in the building with three HCAs. …Since COVID, we have always been short staffed. We have always been without this medicine, that antibiotic, those supplies. After a few years of this, we burned out. Staff are leaving, further adding to the shortage crisis.”
When asked to illustrate the patient safety issues caused by these conditions, he shared: “You have no idea how residents’ care is compromised. The day and night nurses are also overwhelmed, and they are so understaffed that they are also unable to adequately care for the residents. … I arrive at the apartment and they are in critical condition or already dead. I have had to send several people to the hospital with sepsis or even severe infections. Some never came back.”
The once ubiquitous praise for “health care heroes” has turned out to be empty, as health care workers continue to fight through a new level of burnout, fighting on the front lines for a third year, as hospital CEOs and politicians celebrate the fictional end of the pandemic.
A letter to the Biden administration in mid-November from 33 medical groups painted a devastating picture of the crisis that gripped emergency departments across the country. Doctors and nurses called for urgent action to address the crisis in which emergency departments are overwhelmed and overwhelmed with patients waiting to be seen and hospitals are overcapacity with no beds available to receive critically ill patients.
It is not surprising that these calls fall on deaf ears, since the current situation is the result of a deliberate policy pursued for years and decades by the established parties. Healthcare workers also discussed the irrationality of for-profit healthcare with WSWS reporters.
Another RN who chose to remain anonymous commented in a thread about the current rise in “tripledemia.” “This is the part where our health care system will now pick up an ever-increasing speed toward collapse. The working conditions, salary, etc., have been terrible for decades in these positions. The C-suite gobbled up all the profits/pay raises and gave the actual workers next to nothing…while keeping them away from dangers (dangerous exposure to every disease you can think of, radiation, violence, etc.) and they charge from 6 to 7 -calculate salaries.”
He continued: “There are no serious attempts to fix anything across the country. People are dying from lack of access to care, healthcare workers are being pushed into suicide/PTSD/mental breakdown/burnout, and those with the power to do anything are doing…nothing. In fact, worse than nothing, as the C-suites/insurance companies/managers continue to take advantage of and exploit healthcare workers. If we as a nation do not take absolute emergency measures, then I cannot express how much suffering, needless death and, frankly, societal damage will continue to occur and accelerate to dystopian levels.”
TJ, an EMT from the Northeast, expressed similar levels of exhaustion and disdain for the for-profit health care system. “As far as workers are concerned right now, I feel like we’re at an inflection point,” TJ said. “Health care has astronomical rates of burnout and people fleeing the field. I think something like a third of healthcare workers have left the field since the start of the pandemic. That is not sustainable. It comes from a mixture of moral injury and overwork. In a for-profit health care system, you cannot maximize profit by planning ahead and increasing staff and beds. That cuts the bottom line.”
A radiology manager in Oklahoma echoed these sentiments. “For many years, hospitals have cut staff and become increasingly efficient to reduce costs and increase revenue at the expense of patient safety. This has been bubbling under the surface, but when COVID happened it exposed the underbelly of healthcare. This surge was predictable, but when you’re still trying to climb out of the COVID hole, how prepared can you really be?
“Health care is extremely broken. It has become a benefit over people. The ‘do more with less’ mentality, in my opinion, is why so many people left the field during COVID. Health care is a selfless service, but if we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will?
It is the working class, in all industries, that must and is defending itself. There is growing opposition around the world against deepening austerity, “let it rip” COVID policies, excruciating workloads and more. In the UK, tens of thousands of NHS healthcare workers are the latest to join the growing wave of healthcare worker strikes, protesting deteriorating working conditions and fighting for the right to secure medical care. free and of high quality for all and an end to its accelerated privatization.
The saturation of hospitals is an accusation of the capitalist system and its treatment of the most vulnerable in society. It points to the need to remove the profit motive from health care, which in turn is linked to the fight for genuinely socialized health care, which prioritizes the medical needs of patients and defends the conditions of healthcare workers. health.
To carry this fight forward, health care workers must organize independently of the union apparatus, their corporate supporters, and the two big business parties. Now more than ever, the formation of grassroots committees in all fields of health care is an urgent need.