Challenges, Risks For Nurses In Fight Against COVID-19

Syed Faizan & Dr. Balasubramanian N
Understanding the importance of the nurses World Health Organization has recently released the report ‘The State of the World Nursing, 2020’ on their status in the world. This is the first report of its kind. Along with this, it has to be remembered that the World Health Organization is celebrating 2020 as an International Nurse and Midwife Year. According to the organization, there is a shortage of six million nurses worldwide and if the world is to achieve universal health coverage by 2030, then like nurses and midwives to train and provide them with infrastructure facilities, increase their salaries and secure them. Nations will have to invest for environment etc. Nurses account for about 60 percent of the total number of health workers around the world. There are 2.79 crore nurses out of which 1.93 crore are professional nurses. The world is particularly feeling shortage of nurses during this covid-19 epidemic. The epidemic has killed nurses in many countries and many health workers are currently infected with the corona virus. 80 percent of nurses around the world serve 50 percent of the world’s population. The distribution of nurses is also uneven. Talking about India, per thousand of our country the population is 1.7 nurses, which is lower than the World Health Organization standard. In villages where about 65 percent of the country’s population lives, there is a huge shortage of nurses. On the one hand, there is a need of around 60 lakh nurses in the world to achieve the health goal for everyone by 2030, while this report also warns that the availability of nurses may worsen in the coming years. This is because the two countries which supply the largest number of nurse staff worldwide, Philippines and India have given such indications. The National Health Service of these two countries is itself struggling with a shortage of nurses. There is a need to encourage the nurses working on the front against Corona in every possible way. Society should remember at the time of this crisis that nurses are most needed to win this covid-19 war. In such cases, the attacks on nurses and mistreatment of them are in fact the sequel to the vision of human society that they had with nurses in the era of Ebola and HIV AIDS. Nurses working on the front lines of this disease put aside their own well-being to care for patients with COVID-19 and undoubtedly put themselves at increased risk for contracting the virus. As we have witnessed in other countries, the pandemic has and will continue to overburden our healthcare system.
The corona epidemic has given the government and society another opportunity to understand the importance of health nurses. This opportunity should not be missed.
Long hours and stressful environments can take a toll on nurses, decreasing their immune systems, making them more vulnerable to severe illness. Lack of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N95 masks, gowns and gloves or poor compliance with infection prevention and control practices may also contribute to placing providers at heightened risk. Health care administrators should ensure proper staffing; appropriate infection prevention supplies are available and reinforce education and training on the importance of adhering to infection control guidelines. There are reports of obscene behaviour and actions by nurses and women health workers engaged in treatment by Corona infected. Presently, nurses and other health workers all over the world are working day and night to save their human family. So also affects the mental health of nurses, especially the nurses who work in the ICU, and are currently posted on the covid-19 front. Nurses are facing struggle which creates stress on them. Every day, they struggle to protect their families, their communities, and themselves from the coronavirus. Nurses have moved into hotel rooms or sleep in their cars. Some are working 24-hour shifts to reduce the number of times they move between the hospital and home. Some have sent their children and families to stay with friends or grandparents rather than risk exposing them to the virus. Nurses faced prejudice, ostracisation and eviction over fears they have come into contact with the virus. One nurse, 38, working at a Kolkata hospital, described how her landlady turned up at her door two days ago and gave her and her two young children 24 hours to get out of the house she had lived in for seven years. The nurse said she and her children had been forced to move in with her mother, who lives in a single-room house in a slum. “Five of us have to huddle in that 10ft by 10ft room now,” she said. “I am working on 12-hour shifts in my hospital. It’s all extremely exhausting. And now I have to find a new place to live – but if people know that I work as a nurse in a big city hospital no one will be willing to rent out an apartment to me. Nurses and midwives often do not get the requisite respect in society and the nursing profession, while their services are very important. The corona epidemic has given the government and society another opportunity to understand the importance of health nurses. This opportunity should not be missed.
(The authors are freelancers. Views are their own, [email protected])