The Covid 19 Effect - ICN reports on trauma faced by nurses

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Wednesday, 20 January 2021 - 7 minutes

New evidence gathered by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) 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 anti-vaccinators.

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 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 they work in.

The pandemic risks damaging the nursing profession for generations to come unless governments take action now to address the COVID Effect, which our 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. With the COVID Effect potentially leading to even more nurses leaving the profession, governments must act now to protect the nursing profession and our already fragile healthcare systems, or jeopardise the health of their nations and the World Health Organization’s goal of Universal Health Care.

Read the report at icn.ch

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