On this week’s 51%, we discuss the growing burnout among healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic, and why some are leaving the profession. We also visit a new vacation spot for families and children battling serious illness, and speak with the new chief of surgery at a major hospital in New York state.

Guests: Candie St. Jean, nurse case manager at Cooley Dickinson Hospital; Dr. KMarie King, chief of surgery at Albany Medical Center

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You’re listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women’s issues and experiences. Thanks for giving us a listen, I’m Jesse King. We’re bringing you a trio of healthcare stories today — starting, of course, with the coronavirus pandemic. At this point, we’re all familiar with tales of the nurses and doctors battling the virus on the front lines, but what does the battle look and feel like now that the vaccine is out, and the country is straining for some version of normalcy? 

Well, in some ways, it's not all that different. COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise due to the Delta variant. Hospitals across the country are once again struggling to make room for new patients, only this time many of them rejected the vaccine that was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel. 

So many healthcare workers are burning out. Some are quitting, exacerbating staffing shortages and wait times nationwide. In March, Beacon Research in Boston surveyed 500 nurses across Massachusetts, and 37 percent said they see themselves leaving the profession sooner than they had planned. The Massachusetts Nursing Association is calling for a number of reforms, including better transparency from hospital administrators, decreased mental health boarding in emergency rooms, and the presumption that any healthcare staff diagnosed with COVID-19 caught it while on the job. A nurses’ strike at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester has stretched on for over six months over disputed working conditions. 

I recently spoke with Candie St. Jean, a nurse at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts. 

What is it like, being a nurse right now?

The talk is, you know, healthcare workers experiencing burnout, which is very, very real. But I want to stress, number one, burnout doesn't just happen because of a pandemic. Many of the things, if not all of the things that we're experiencing right now, were happening before COVID even hit in 2020. You know, not having adequate staff, etc. But the past few months, the people that are hospitalized are some of the most complex [cases] that we've ever seen. We've had patients come in that didn't seek care during most of 2020, so they're understandably much more complex. Also, socially, emotionally, people that didn't have enough support before this – many of the supports and resources were cut during the pandemic – and it just contributes to the complexity of patients. We're seeing more mental health admissions, we're seeing more addictions, alcohol intoxications, things like that, because of resources that have been cut.

So we've been taking care of these types of patients in recent months, and now we've got COVID ramping up again. It doesn't seem that the proactive planning has been happening this time around, either. You know, last year, elective procedures were cancelled. There were things put in place to not only save beds, but provide more adequate staffing. Those things are not in place right now. And yeah, there have been a number of healthcare workers that have left the profession, because they just can't do it anymore. I have had many of my nurses reach out to me in recent weeks and months that they feel their licenses are in jeopardy, because of the assignments they have. They have too many patients. We don't have enough ancillary staff. You know, there's one unit in particular that never has a secretary to answer the phone. And as a case manager – we coordinate with othe