“I work in health care because every day is different. I like taking care of people, especially in their most vulnerable moments. But nurses are dropping left and right and we aren’t getting new staff to replace them. Before COVID, staffing was always an issue, but now it’s even worse. I’m worried about my patients, and I don’t see this getting better unless the whole healthcare system changes.”
— Rhonda, RN, Everett
“I’ve been a CNA for 28 years because I love caring for my patients and my community. As hospital workers, we faced many staffing shortages before the pandemic, making it difficult to give the kind of attention and deliver the care we all desire to provide. With the pandemic, we are facing unprecedented staffing shortages as people leave our field and aren’t replaced. We need statewide staffing legislation so that caregivers — union and non-union — have safe patient assignments. We will all be patients someday, and we all deserve high quality care when we are.”
— Savita, CNA, Bellingham
“I’ve been a nurse for 26 years, and I’ve never seen so many colleagues leaving. They are retiring early, they are leaving to become travelers, and they have gone to less stressful jobs in clinics or freestanding surgical centers to get out of the pressure cooker that has become bedside care. This has meant that we are scrambling to cover our patients’ needs – it’s bad for nurses and healthcare workers, and it’s bad for patients.”
— Julia, RN, Toppenish
“So many health care workers have left. Some left early out of fear for their safety due to the lack of adequate personal protective equipment like respirators, eye shields and gowns. But for the last year, we’ve lost countless colleagues who have decided they simply can’t continue under the current conditions. Nurses are leaving to go to travel nursing, where they can earn in a week what staff nurses earn in a month – and take a vacation between assignments. Others may go to a job that is safer and more manageable, like in a clinic or surgical center. Many simply retire. We’re losing them from the bedside, and I worry we’re in a downward spiral.”
— Emily, RN, Spokane
“I am tired. You are tired. We are tired. We have been on the battlefields with bare bones staffing during this pandemic, and it has exacerbated a broken healthcare system even further. It has consequently inflamed the emotional, physical, and moral injury that we face on a daily basis. Not only are we fighting a system that doesn’t prioritize quality, safe, and dignified care, but also failing to recognize and respect the work that we do ourselves. We have exhausted every avenue possible at unit, campus, and system level to fight for safe staffing. This is why we need to take this fight beyond the hospital walls and engage our lawmakers to help all of us get what we need for our patients and each other.”
— Carol, RN, Issaquah
“Critical staffing shortages affect the safety of patients and staff; they lead to burnout and cause delays in patient care. We cannot continue to rely on part-time and full-time employees working extra shifts to cover the shortages. Hospital administrations need to focus on recruiting and retaining staff and promoting safe staffing levels for the current and future needs of our growing patient population. We needed sustainable staffing before the pandemic, we definitely need it now, and we certainly will need it after.”
— Maria, Vascular Tech, Everett