Medical colleges warn of workforce crisis as ‘exhausted’ nurses quit the job

Medical colleges are warning of a workforce crisis after pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic stretched health workers like never before.

Nurses are leaving the profession in droves.

CEO of the Australian College of Nursing, Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward, said they’re “absolutely exhausted”.

“There’s nurses telling me they’ve been denied annual leave for over a year, doing double shifts, extensive work, in the PPE,” she told Ross and Russel.

“I’m concerned about the number that have given up their registration in the pandemic.

“What’s been more concerning is the contact the nurses are making with us of leaving their employment and walking away from their roles.”

Adjunct Professor Ward said the exodus comes down to stress and poor pay.

“The pay isn’t what it should be,” she said.

“I heard last week from a nurse who worked in an aged care facility and one of her residents was dying, and she said she would come back and speak to her. She was so busy, of course, being the only registered nurse on in a large facility. By the time she got back to her her resident had passed away.

“She was so distraught that she had made a promise she couldn’t keep, and she went home that day and said ‘I’ll never nurse again, I cannot do this’.”

“That’s the kind of stress that people probably don’t understand, or don’t factor in.”

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