We've just had enough: Understaffing at hospitals puts our patients at higher risk

As a surgical technician, nothing is more rewarding than assisting in a spinal surgery then seeing that patient able to walk again and go home to a better life. I absolutely love my job, but we’re so short staffed in the operating room and throughout our facility – a Nevada hospital owned by for-profit giant HCA Healthcare – that it’s difficult to provide the quality of care our patients deserve.

Front-line workers at HCA hospitals from California to Florida have experienced the same struggles, while the corporation made more than $16 billion in profits in the past three years.

Now, we are calling on HCA, America’s largest hospital conglomerate, to invest some of its massive resources in safe staffing to solve this crisis and ensure the best care for our communities.

A military veteran still serving my country

I started out as a surgical tech in the U.S. Army over three decades ago, and I view my whole career as service to my country.

I’ve worked at my hospital for 18 years now, and during that time I’ve seen staffing levels get worse and worse. The health care workforce has been aging, but as people started retiring, HCA hasn’t filled open positions, despite being highly profitable.

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When the pandemic hit, it severely exacerbated this long-term problem, because co-workers left in droves. I volunteered to work on the COVID-19 units in my hospital and saw firsthand why: Many employees were fed up with not having enough staff. Many were having extreme panic attacks and just couldn’t go on working. Others left to protect vulnerable family members. And some of our co-workers even lost their lives to the virus.

Now, we’re experiencing a third wave of turnover because we’re burned out and traumatized. Workers are reducing their schedules, quitting our hospital or leaving the health care profession altogether.

We’ve just had enough.

I’m a prime example of someone who had to reduce my schedule due to burnout. Because of short staffing at my HCA hospital, I was sometimes forced to work 19-hour shifts in the operating room and was called in on multiple weekends. It’s incredibly tough to be on your feet in an atmosphere requiring intense concentration for many hours on end.

Overwhelming worker-to-patient ratios

I started having all the symptoms of burnout, including irritability with my loved ones, headaches and aching joints, complete exhaustion, finding it hard to get out of bed, and driving into work with a sense of dread. I had to make a change to protect my mind, my body and my closest relationships.

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Co-workers throughout our hospital are experiencing the same symptoms from overwhelming worker-to-patient ratios. There are patient-care techs who sometimes have 18 patients per shift. That is just not fair to those workers or the vulnerable people they’re caring for.

We can’t retain staff and are having trouble recruiting new grads because they come in, get ground into dust and then quit within a couple months.

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Low staffing levels are not only affecting workers but also our patients. Our national union, Service Employees International Union, recently released a comprehensive report that shows staffing at HCA hospitals has been about 30% lower than the national average for years.

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The report describes a survey of more than 1,500 HCA nurses and other front-line workers, 89% of whom responded “I feel short staffing at my hospital is compromising patient care.”

Our experiences are reflected in the report’s data. HCA hospitals have performed worse than average on a range of patient satisfaction and quality indicators.

Despite all the hardships, health care workers have shown up for our community and our hospitals throughout the pandemic. Now it’s time for HCA to show up for us.

HCA executives need to put their immense profits toward safe staffing and supporting dedicated front-line workers, so we can continue to be there for our patients.

Erika Watanabe, a certified surgical technician at an HCA hospital in Las Vegas for two decades, is an executive board member of her union, SEIU Local 1107. 

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: HCA puts profit over patients. They must fix hospital staffing crisis.