A string of layoffs at Baystate Noble Hospital coupled with the threat of the coronavirus pandemic have nurses worried about the hospital’s future. "People want a full-service, fully staffed hospital," said Paul Dubin, a registered nurse and co-chairman of the Massachusetts Nurses Association Bargaining Committee. "We're worried about the future of inpatient services here at Noble."
The nursing profession may be one of the most difficult and varied in the medical field. National surveys have shown that nursing can be both a physically grueling and mentally stressful job that literally has life and death consequences no matter the level of licensure or area of care. We surveyed nearly 1,500 nurses in the Southeast states of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and northern Florida to help us understand what nurses most value in an employer, what’s making them want to leave, and what got them into the profession to begin with.
When the coronavirus was first detected in a nursing home an hour away in Kirkland on Feb. 29, Lasana Bridges, a licensed practical nurse here, thought little of it. As a “traveling nurse” employed by multiple agencies, she has spent the last decade working in nursing homes all over the country, from Florida to Maine and now Washington.
Can you imagine eating the same lentil soup at your desk for lunch virtually every workday for almost two decades? I couldn’t, at least not until I talked to Reid Branson, a Seattle nurse manager who has been doing just that. The soup is from Crescent Dragonwagon’s 1992 book “Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread,” and Branson fell so in love with it that it changed his lunch routine for the rest of his professional life.
A Sacramento area healthcare worker is sounding the alarm after her experience being tested for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The registered nurse from Roseville who spoke to ABC 10 under the condition of anonymity was tested for the coronavirus Thursday at the Sutter Roseville Hospital.
California has a severe shortage of mental health professionals. According to the Rural Health Information Hub in 2019, 49 out of California’s 58 counties have a deficit of providers. All around us, we see how people are suffering because of this shortfall. In San Diego, the rate of suicide among veterans and active-duty military is rising. And on our streets, we see the suffering from addiction and mental illness in our homeless population.