Reclaiming Nurses Week Part 1: The Problem

In Part 1 of this video series, Reclaiming Nurses Week, nurses share stories to identify the impact that burnout has on their mental health, and how the landscape has changed for nurses since the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent research has shown that the number of nurses taking their own lives exceeds the general population: nurses need our support. It's time for a change.

Read the transcript:

Rose: Nurses have continued to be nurses.

Sarah: Going from being extremely burned out because of the environment that I was working in, to facing moral injury at the bedside, we can't be any more resilient.

Lori: We've had people leaving the profession. Those remaining are questioning, should I stay?

Joshua: I'm hearing tragic and heartbreaking stories from around the country from nurses and healthcare professionals, we need help and we need change now.

Sarah: At least twice a week, we receive messages from people who've lost someone recently.

Joshua: For me, I had to switch to part-time because I think I recognized early that I was kind of having some signs of burnout and I never want to be that nurse.

Sarah: And then, that night at my wedding, I'm putting my dress back in my bag and it reminds me of the same white body bags. And I'm like, how am I thinking of this in the happiest moment of my life?

Rose: I experienced suicidality. My belief was at that time, the only option was not being here, not existing.

Joshua: This is not isolated. There are nurses and healthcare workers across the country that are struggling. A lot of people have told me that they've lost a colleague during this pandemic to suicide.

Sarah: At some point, our systems, the environments that we're in have to change.

Cheryl Agranovich: What will happen if we don't really change the way that we're caring for the nursing profession? We'll probably have increased risk of patients dying because medical errors are going to occur. We will continue to have people in the hospital that need help. And if we don't have great people to take care of them, it will be very difficult for us to really solve that puzzle.