Hospital doctors and nurses feel stressed
There’s the community outside of UF Health Shands Hospital, where mask-wearing has declined from the early days of the pandemic, businesses are open and tens of thousands of mask-less fans attended a UF football game last Saturday.
To some, it could seem like life is getting back to normal.
But then, there’s the world inside the COVID unit of the hospital, where doctors and nurses say they have been seeing the tragic results of foolish decisions, particularly a reluctance by so many patients they see to get vaccinated.
They repeatedly use terms like “demoralized,” and “frustrated” when describing the emotional toll this latest surge has taken on them and their families.
“Demoralizing is a great word for that,” said nurse Christina Tretter. “It’s been very frustrating because it seems that many people still don’t take it seriously."
She said it’s disappointing that most of the patients they are seeing in the COVID ward are unvaccinated [ ~ 90%].
“And many admit to not wearing masks at all — going to parties, going to different activities and events with no masks,” she said. “It’s frustrating when they still don’t think it’s a thing. They’ll say, ‘Vaccinations don’t help anyway. Masks don’t help anyway.’"
Tretter said many health care workers have left the hospital to take less stressful jobs.
“I know a lot of nurses who are considering other careers altogether,” she said. “Nurses have the weight of people’s lives on their shoulders, but they are not paid that way. Unfortunately, we’re asking people to come into a career field that wears you down emotionally, mentally. You are on your toes for 12 hours. We’re wearing all this equipment for 12 hours.
