Hospitals have fewer nurses to draw on as the delta variant of COVID-19 fills hospital beds once again. Early retirements and career shifts to outpatient settings have thinned the ranks of hospital nurses who provide direct care, and experts fear the trend will continue. Meanwhile, producing new nurses to fill the gap will take years. The result of this understaffing is longer wait times and high patient loads that can compromise the quality of care. “If things keep going the way they are, we’re going to lose people for sure,” said Cassie Kavanaugh, the chief nursing officer at Texas Emergency Hospital in Cleveland. “And as a nurse, that’s almost too much to bear.” (New York Times article, 8/21/21)
