Nothing is good enough
I’ve been working in a COVID unit for at least 3 months. At the peak of the Omicron wave, tensions were high between worried staff, worried family, and and worried patients.
With the most skeleton of staff, we struggled in PPE with many of my colleagues experiencing electrolyte imbalances, headaches, nausea; brought upon by excessive sweating and limited water or toilet breaks. I remember feeling so dehydrated that I vomitted three times in one hour all the water I had desperately drunk in my short water break. I pulled through and just managed to nurse myself at home just because I knew we couldn’t be one more nurse short. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my already worried family about my day as they were already anxious about me bringing home COVID and anxious that I was working in unsafe conditions.
Patients would endlessly demand updates as if COVID could be cured with a snap of fingers. Families would take up all our phone lines and abuse us the minute they connected to someone. I couldn’t get in touch with hospital staff as my lines were all congested with incoming calls. When we could speak with family, it felt like whatever we said, whatever we did, whatever care we said we were providing; it was never good enough since we didn’t have some magical COVID cure. We were abused on end, and we were made to feel worthless all because of anxieties and hate people had for a system that couldn’t keep up with it’s people’s needs.
I have been sexually assaulted by COVID-delirium patients and I am still finding my way to come to terms with it. I have been grabbed, scratched, physically assaulted, spat at and urinated on by mentally sane patients because they were frustrated that nurses could not give them the level of care they wanted since we had no resources.
I acknowledge that I have become desensitised. I can reflect that I see society and people in darker light because of all the abuse I’ve taken. I see myself as less of a person because I have felt like I am never doing enough; despite knowing and seeing my colleagues and I do more that what could be expected of a nurse based off our Standards and the will of human beings. I’ve seen my friends, my colleagues, lose joy in the things we used to enjoy because we just want some time to rest, undisturbed. We are different, shaped through battering (physically and mentally) and we are not going to sit tight and take any more.