I sometimes hear people in healthcare say this: ‘I really hate people.’ It isn’t confined to one hospital or one situation. It isn’t unique to a particular group but can be heard from secretaries, technicians, medics, nurses, physicians and all the rest.
It’s usually uttered in the midst of times of incredible stress. Right now, whether you know it or not, American healthcare is in a bad state. We have a staggering shortage of nurses and consequently a nearly unimaginable lack of available hospital beds to admit the sick and injured. (Without nursing staff, the bed isn’t available.)
We have insufficient numbers of physicians almost across the board, and this is nowhere more evident and devastating than in suburban and rural areas, far from teaching centers.
To add to the problem, we have an aging population with complicated medical problems. The great thing is, we can treat things we couldn’t until the last couple of decades and folks are living and enjoying life far longer than they would have before. However, we just don’t have enough staff and facilities to manage all of the complexity in a timely manner.
Along the way we have supply chain issues, like the inability to obtain contrast dye for CT scans. (80% of the world’s supply is made in Shanghai, which is shut down due to COVID.) Medications, personal protective equipment, the list goes on and on as we have not (yet) rolling blackouts but rolling shortages.
In addition we have a nation in the throes of epdemic levels of addiction to methamphetamine, heroin, fentanly and other substances, along with apocalpytic levels of mental illness (but without enough mental health or addictions professionals or facilities). Exploding levels of violence, sometimes even in hospitals, make it all even more concerning.
This all falls at the feet of people who work with the sick, the wounded, the dying, the stressed, the depressed, the psychotic, the overdose, the withdrawing and all the rest.
Their shifts are long and their exhaustion is growing.
Thus, sometimes in the chaos they say things like, ‘I really hate people.’
To which I’ve started saying, ‘no you don’t, if you did you wouldn’t do this. You’re just overwhelmed.’
Overwhelmed is an understatement. We have work to do to assist and encourage those working in the current crisis. We need to fix what’s broken.
The frustration of the people in the health professions is a warning sign. And we mustn’t ignore it.
Or else ‘I hate people’ will seem like a quaint comment from ‘the olden days’ by comparison to what we start hearing and seeing in the future.
You have an incredible gift to put into words what we are all feeling. I am near the end of my career and I am confident that I can do anything for a few more years. I fear for my son (an intern in emergency medicine) and all of my younger colleagues. This has to get better. Thanks for brining it to light in such an eloquent manner. However bad it is I still fell blessed that I am able to earn a living helping people.
Without enough nursing staff the beds aren’t available. I would have to argue that point. We went from a 12 bed ICU to 30 at the height of Covid and did not have near enough staff! Hence the shortage of nurses we have now. We were told do the best you can we have no one else. That’s why a lot of nurses are retiring early. Sad but true!