“I'm Not As Good of a Nurse As I Used To Be”

Healthcare workers talk to me about how overwork and understaffing are leading to burnout

Staffing issues at hospitals around the country have worsened since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, putting patients in danger and leaving nurses burnt out and overworked. 

Jannette Latunski, RN, who was employed until recently at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California, told me that suboptimal staffing leads to poor outcomes for workers and patients alike.

“It's basically become an avalanche of unsafe and improperly staffed environments with very, very sick people,” Latunski said. “And the hospital has become very, very comfortable to keep piling on more and more and more demands onto the nursing staff.”

I talked to Latunski and other nurses about how the staffing crunch has affected patient care and burnout. Here’s what they told me. 

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