Now the pandemic has stretched resources to a breaking point. Unprecedented staff shortagesīefore the pandemic, nursing shortages were common in most areas of the state, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. In part, the order allows health care workers from out of state to work in California.
Gavin Newsom signed an executive order reinstating emergency provisions aimed at ensuring adequate staffing. In March 2020, the California Department of Public Health contracted with Aya Health - one of the nation’s largest traveling nurse providers - to pay up to $1 billion over six months to help hospitals meet nursing and other clinical staff shortages.ĭepartment officials did not respond to multiple requests about the number of hospitals now seeking emergency staffing, and would not release the updated contract.
“There’s not enough staff to keep beds open, and patients can languish waiting.”
Tom Sugarman, an emergency physician in the East Bay and senior director of government affairs at Vituity, a physicians’ group. “Oftentimes at hospitals there are long waits and long delays,” said Dr. Hospitals say they are reaching a crisis point, straining under the dual forces of more people seeking routine care and surging COVID-19 hospitalizations driven by the Delta variant. Some traveling nurses - who are in high demand nationwide - are turning down California assignments because they don’t want to get vaccinated. Hospitals are struggling to comply with the state’s nurse staffing requirements as pandemic-induced burnout has exacerbated an already chronic nursing shortage nationwide.īut burnout isn’t the only thing compounding California’s nursing shortage: The state’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers is already causing headaches for understaffed hospitals before it is even implemented. Photo courtesy of Matt MieleĪround California - and the nation - nurses are trading in high-pressure jobs for a career change, early retirement or less demanding assignments, leading to staffing shortages in many hospitals. Matt Miele, a trauma nurse, is looking for a less stressful position after 18 months of fighting COVID.
0 kommentar(er)
