A transmedia story about healthcare workers during the pandemic, focusing on the collapsing system and the lived experience of a pulmonary ICU nurse.
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View CampaignWhat happened when an already failing healthcare system was met with a global pandemic? The very people that kept that strained system alive faced extreme levels of burnout and psychological stress. Prior to COVID-19, burnout among healthcare workers was already present, and the pandemic pushed it into a crisis.
Inspired by her aunt and to be the first of her family to go to college, Jessica Bromley describes nursing as a calling driven by a desire to help others and acknowledges the brokenness of the American healthcare system. She meets people with compassion and understanding, even when they present mistrust and frustration with that system.
“It has definitely opened my eyes to all of the different hurdles people face in keeping themselves healthy. And I've seen a lot of patterns and how these systems kind of keep people sick. And it makes a lot of sense to me why people don't trust healthcare systems. It's a broken system filled with a lot of people who genuinely want to help for the right reasons.”
In the summer of 2020 she thought the worst of it was over and felt ready to continue growing her family. Another “wave” hit and while she was growing new life she continued to tirelessly show up with fierce dedication and compassion for her ICU patients—despite staffing shortages, limited resources, physical discomfort, and illness.
“This pregnancy was a lot more my body than my first, and I think it had to do with the stress I was under, in retrospect. I was also very sick., I was throwing up a lot with that pregnancy, and I felt claustrophobic all the time with all the PPE I had to wear. I remember getting just so hot and having such a hard time breathing.”
“I made the conscious choice to stay where I was. I could have quit. I could have gone to work somewhere else. But I felt safe enough with the PPE that we had, I felt that if I went somewhere else, I would be more likely to be exposed. At least here, I have the respirators, I have all the things that I need to keep me safe. I was safer here even though I was working alongside it.”
Resources became so scarce that healthcare workers had to reuse masks and gowns because suppliers didn’t keep up with the new demands the pandemic brought on. Not only that, but seasoned nurses were leaving the bedside because they were burned out and couldn’t continue. Some got office jobs, some stayed home, and there were others who left for travel nursing—which paid up to five times the amount. Jessica was responsible for all the patients on the floor, all the nurses providing care, all while ensuring everyone had what they needed and understood what they needed to do—including travel nurses, some brand-new with only med school experience.
“If I didn't have young kids at home, if I didn't have, you know, a mortgage other reasons to not do travel nursing, I would have done it in a heartbeat. They were making so much more money. And that was another disheartening part. I wasn't getting raises during COVID. But we were having nurses come in making five times more than me, but that would still leave me to then show them how everything worked.”
While society applauded healthcare workers during one of the most chaotic times in modern history, many forgot they were human too. They had families to protect, emotions to process, and lives upended by the same pandemic they were fighting on the front lines.
“What was the most discouraging part about that rhetoric was we were being called heroes. Communities didn't want to hear the hard things. People didn't want to hear why masking was helpful. They didn't want to hear about vaccines. Everything was just very polarizing. And it's like you want to put me on a pedestal, but you don't want to hear what I have to say.”
Sources
Articles used to develop this story.
PubMed Central: COVID-19 impacts on mental health, burnout, and longevityPBS NEWS: COVID made health care burnout worse
PubMed Central: Impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers