New evidence gathered by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) on Wednesday suggests COVID-19 is causing mass trauma among the world’s nurses. The number of confirmed nurse deaths now exceeds 2,200, and with high levels of infections in the nursing workforce continuing, overstretched staff are experiencing increasing psychological distress in the face of ever-increasing workloads, continued abuse, and protests by antivaccination, said the ICN in a press release from its headquarters in Geneva.
Preliminary findings from ICN’s new survey of its 130-plus National Nurses associations (NNAs), coupled with studies by its NNAs and other sources, suggest that the COVID-19 Effect is a unique and complex form of trauma with potentially devastating consequences in both the short- and long-term for individual nurses and healthcare systems.
The pandemic risks damaging the nursing profession for generations to come unless governments take action now to address the COVID-19 Effects, which the survey suggests could trigger an exodus from the profession.
The world is already short of six million nurses, with another four million due to reach retirement age in the next ten years. Furthermore, with the COVID-19 Effect potentially leading to even more nurses leaving the profession, governments must act now to protect the nursing profession and the fragile healthcare systems or jeopardize the health of their nations and the World Health Organization’s goal of Universal Health Care.
ICN’s data shows that, since the first wave of the pandemic, the proportion of nurses reporting mental health distress has risen from 60 to 80 percent in many countries. It has also gathered together studies from every region of the world, which confirm rising trauma, anxiety and burnout in the nursing profession. ICN is a federation of more than 130 national nurses’ associations founded in 1899 and based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Source-KUNA
Read Today's News TODAY... on our Telegram Channel click here to join and receive all the latest updates t.me/thetimeskuwait
