To health care workers in the COVID era, holidays mean death, and we knew Omicron was coming before it had a name. The wave caused by this variant has barely begun, rapidly gathering steam, and we are exhausted, attempting to pull from reserves badly drained by earlier surges.
The anger of the nurses, myself included, surged along with the patient population. Rage seeped along the halls of the intensive care unit, burned in the quick conversations in the medication supply room, and settled around all of us as we tried to keep our heads above water for yet another push of the pandemic that had turned so many of us into open wounds. I was angry at everything: angry at the systemic failures of the government to act, angry at the individuals who treated COVID as a joke and angry at the disinformation that ushered in more death.
The neonatal intensive care unit treats the tiniest, most vulnerable patients at Hennepin Healthcare.
"We would love to have parents here all the time with their babies and bonding with them and enjoying them. But, with COVID, too, having other things on the outside world happening, it's not always possible," explained Nicole Kunstleben, a NICU nurse.
That's why she and her fellow nurses are crafting a way for families to stay connected. They make, collect and distribute tiny fabric hearts that carry mom, dad, and baby scents.
By the time Carley Sylvester graduated from nursing school, she had lived in the Twin Cities, La Crosse and Rochester. But she chose to return to her native Wabasha to start her career."There’s something about Gundersen St. Elizabeth's that you don't find at other places," Sylvester said.
ASNA is a nursing advocacy organization that aims to advocate for nurses in Alabama. The group is asking the legislature to allocate funding for retainment and recruitment of nursing state, arguing that nurses haven’t seen adequate funding from federal COVID-19 dollars. With turnover rates some of the highest in the nation, ASNA wants to address the lack of funding through the state government.
From hospitals and long-term care facilities to private homes, nurses are in high demand. They're also severely burnt-out as health care personnel prepare to face a third year of almost unrelenting pandemic-related stress.
Still, a new generation of students hasn’t been deterred from rising to the challenge.