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Some people are critical of nurses when those healthcare professionals take a tough stand during contract negotiations or, in the extreme, opt to go on strike and walk picket lines, with the goal of receiving a better deal.
It's also true that police officers, whose lives are at risk virtually every time they clock in, also are the focus of such notions by the public when contract talks stall.
However, what is the situation that would exist if there were no nurses or police officers, or if there were too few to handle the myriad tasks associated with both professions? The answer is easy; chaos would ensue.
But back to nurses:
On Oct. 21, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article headlined "Nurses are in high demand but quit in droves." Underneath the headline was the message "Understaffing, abuse spark turnover."
An editorial of this length cannot cover all of the points of the Journal's article, but the rest of this editorial will cover some of the main points.
Those points are the proverbial food-for-thought, regardless of whatever opinion people harbor about nurses in general or their perceptions about how they were treated by nurses when they were in need of medical care.
"A 2024 survey of 800,000 nurses found that roughly 40% said they planned to leave the workforce or retire in the next five years, with many citing stress, burnout and understaffing," the Journal article reported. In another survey, this year, 43% said they were likely to leave bedside roles within the next year, up from 38% the prior year.
Nursing schools across America reportedly are graduating many thousands of new nurses every year. However, the rate of exit by nurses with on-the-job experience is undermining what is being accomplished on the education/training front.
Contributing to that exit, besides understaffing pressures and burnout, are verbal abuse and violence in the hospital setting -- violence that should be non-existent in a place whose mission is to cure and heal those in need of medical treatment.
The Journal article refers to incidents of nurses being kicked, punched and spat on - on the order of more than 1,000 attacks a month.
"A recent survey of 1,300 nurses by National Nurses United found 33% said they'd been slapped, punched or kicked in the past year, with another 12% reporting being groped or inappropriately touched," the Journal said.
The Journal report noted that many hospital emergency departments have become "catch basins for people with unmet mental-health challenges in full-blown crises."
Nearly two out of five healthcare workers have considered leaving their jobs because of safety concerns, according to a Harris Poll survey last year commissioned by a security-tech firm.
Meanwhile, hospitals aren't necessarily benefiting financially from the exits of experienced nurses -- a fact probably not understood by the general public. In fact, the proverbial revolving door is increasing expenses for hospitals significantly, causing America's hospitals to spend many millions of dollars to recruit new personnel and fill gaps.
An Atlanta health system says it experiences a cost of about $78,000 anytime a nurse leaves.
How the information compiled by the Journal squares with the situations that exist at hospitals in the six-county Southern Alleghenies region -- and others nearby -- is a story that needs to be told.
The challenge for the general public and, specifically, patients is to understand and acknowledge that negative opinions not based on the full nursing picture are counterproductive even to their own overall best interests.