Covid-19 exposed the devastating consequences of staff shortages in nursing homes. But the problem isn't new.
Julie Moore recalls harrowing experiences from the pandemic inside the Philadelphia nursing home where she works.
As the virus spread throughout the facility last year, emergency responders came and went regularly, taking yet another resident running low on oxygen to the hospital. Staff members were infected and some died, leaving a facility already running low on employees struggling to keep up with residents’ needs.
“It was so few of us in the building that we were just literally running from floor to floor seeing who needed help,” Moore, who works as a certified nursing assistant, said. “It was an absolute nightmare.”
Covid-19 ravaged nursing homes across the United States — killing more than 132,000 residents and more than 1,900 staff members as of June 13, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) — and it also highlighted the dire consequences that staff shortages in those long-term care facilities can have.
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