Why Nurses Are Walking Away: A Deep Dive into Healthcare's Staffing Crisis

Healthcare professionals are leaving the field due to critical staffing shortages across all settings and specialties. From inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios to unaddressed toxic workplace behaviors, the factors driving the healthcare exodus require a collaborative solution involving everyone from hospital administrators to family members.

• Understaffing is the #1 reason healthcare workers leave, causing unsafe conditions for patients and burnout for staff
• Compensation misconceptions persist, with many assuming nurses are highly paid when most are not adequately compensated
• Family members and patients sometimes have unrealistic expectations without understanding the multiple simultaneous emergencies staff manage
• Toxic work environments with unaddressed unprofessional behavior drive away talented professionals
• Managers who fail to correct negative behavior contribute significantly to staff turnover
• Improving healthcare requires effort from everyone: administrators, staff, patients, and families working together
• Better communication and understanding would significantly improve healthcare experiences for everyone

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why People Leave Healthcare
• 1:15 Money Isn't What You Think
• 3:05 Family Members and Patient Expectations
• 6:06 Toxic Work Environments
• 7:12 Solutions and Episode Wrap-up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We're going to talk about it very, very briefly. And those people listening to this who are in health care, thinking about health care, or maybe currently in health care, or maybe they're a family member somewhere. Right, you fall somewhere on the spectrum. So the first reason, the most common reason that I could gather, the first reason, the number one reason why people want to leave health care is staffing, is staffing Doesn't matter. If you're long-term care Doesn't matter if you're med-surg, doesn't matter if you're ER Critical care Doesn't matter where you are.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Staffing seems to be a problem. It's because we don't have safe nursing nurse-to-patient ratios. We just don't have it. If we had that throughout all the United States, there'd be a lot less problems. Family If we had that throughout all the United States, there'd be a lot less problems. Family your family member will be taken care of better if there's proper staff. So my new grad, you wouldn't be as stressed out If you had proper staff. I seen your nurses. You wouldn't be as burnt out if you had proper staff. You had proper staffing. So it's a problem throughout. This isn't a new thing. It's not, you know, nothing new under the sun, but this is a consistent thing. That has been a problem. So that is the number one reason why people want to leave.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Another common reason I see people say is money, and I will briefly talk about this Now. I think some people misunderstood. I think people really got into nurses business during COVID and if you know, you know. So people really had a money paying people all kind of stuff, all kind of pay, just to come work during the pandemic and some people thought you know, that's the norm and we're nowhere near the norm. And when it come to find out, we had doctors that were angry that a nurse was making more than a doctor. Now I'm not here to argue schooling, I'm not here to argue responsibilities. All I'm saying is you got to be more mad at that facility than the individual because you're comparing something. You're comparing a doctor who's staff, and maybe they're a resident, maybe they're new, I don't know how long they've been there, but that's not, that's not an everyday thing where nurses are making more than doctors. Let's just clear that out there. Let's just clear the air right there. But that was a thing for a little bit during COVID. But people were thinking like, oh, nurses make a lot of money. I'm like, no, they do not. Nurses do not make good money, not like they should, not like they should. So let's get that out of the way and then the top-end nurses may be making decent money, but that, that is that. That is that no, nurses aren't paid enough. So money was a common factor.

Speaker 1: 2:56

All right, let's talk about another reason why and I know this one right here is gonna be very controversial is people said family members. Now, why is that? Why is there somebody probably not in hell could listen, to listen to this? They're thinking well, I got to do with it. Well, you know, sometimes let's just talk about it. Let's be honest here.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Sometimes you guys can be extremely selfish and I get it. You want your meemaw, your papa, your son, your daughter. You want them to have the utmost care and you want them to be attended to. As soon as you hit the call light, you want staff to be right there and guess what? They're hurting, they're stressed out. So they mean that stresses the family member out. They don't want to see their loved ones in pain, they don't want to see their loved ones sick and they want you to be a miracle worker when that nurse has another somebody else who has respiratory problems and they have to call a rapid. You got another patient who's having a reaction to blood. You got somebody else that's having continuous bladder irrigation. Or you got somebody else who literally just has somebody pass away and you're mad because your Meemaw or Pawpaw ain't getting a sandwich or he's thirsty and you're wondering where is everybody. I mean, I think if you guys would take the time, it would really really help if you guys would have a little bit of compassion and do a little bit of research on what actually goes on. Actually, if you would take the time to actually talk, go call during the day, go call, call. Call the manager, say I want to speak to the manager. Can you, can you give me an understanding of everything that goes on? Because it seems like care takes forever. It takes forever. Somebody reached a call. Call the CEO. Let them know. I've been saying this for a while Family members you need to let these people know and if they're honest, if you talk to the nurse, they'll say it's staffing Family members. The best thing you could do is tell the manager face to face or talk to the CEO face to face and say can you get these people more help? That's the best thing you can do. Tell them, like family, tell them we need more help. They need more help. If they get more help, my love will be taken care of. Simple as that. Simple as that.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Entitled patients. There's some patients, not all, of course. There's some patients, not all, of course. There's some patients who it's the same, some of the same problems that a family member think that they are the only one. They can literally hear down the hallway somebody screaming and yelling, they can literally hear the bells and whistles, they can hear a whole team running down with a crash cart and yet they are the one. You can give them every reason in the world, they're still not going to listen to you because you should have been right then and there we got to do better. We have to do better. So we can't have that. So if you're a patient, please exercise better patience, please. It goes a long way. It really really does. It really does go a long way. It really really does. It does. It really does go a long way big time.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Another reason, and speaking to managers toxic work environments. You got managers that enable bad employees, don't correct behavior whatsoever. Somebody's late all the time, they let them stay late or they lacked, they lack professionalism and don't address it, don't do anything, don't do any corrective action, or they let the work environment be negative, or they let cliques hang around or mean girls. They let them hang around and it brings the whole entire work environment down, brings the whole team down. So, managers, some of y'all I need to be taking accountability, because the work environment could definitely be better if you wanted it to, if if you wanted it to.

Speaker 1: 6:51

But all these reasons right here, those are just some of the reasons why people leave health care. It's not all. These are just some. So the thing is, if we want health care to be a better place, we want health care to be in a better spot. All these things need to be addressed, all of them.

Speaker 1: 7:12

And it takes.

Speaker 1: 7:14

It takes the nurses that are there.

Speaker 1: 7:15

It takes management.

Speaker 1: 7:17

It takes your CEOs of hospitals.

Speaker 1: 7:20

It takes the patients themselves.

Speaker 1: 7:22

It takes the family members. It takes everybody involved to make this a better process. It takes everybody to make it a better process. And what will really help? If people would be more understanding of one another, if people actually communicate, if people actually have a deeper understanding and a little bit of patience and a little bit of grace, it would go a long, long way. It really would, but y'all have to let me know what do y'all think.

Speaker 1: 7:48

What do you think about all these topics? What do you think about everything that we went over in today's episode? I really like to know. I mean, we talked about, you know, a woman wanting to cut off a foot for taxidermy. I mean, we're talking about you know, a nurse that's disappointed with the system in terms of what happened with him in Staten Island with another psychotic patient. What happened with him in Staten Island with another psychotic patient. I mean, we're talking about advice for 12 hour shifts. We're talking about, you know what I'm saying Like reasons why people leave health care. Y'all have to let me know in the comments below what you think about this entire episode. Ok, but thank you for tuning in with your Wakanda RN. If you enjoyed the episode, please give me a like, a follow. You know what I'm saying. Let me know in the comments below what you think. You can always donate to the channel goes a long way, but I love you guys. I hope you have a blessed day wherever you listen to, wherever you're at, and I am out.