Pennsylvania hospitals wrestle with nurse staffing issues as pandemic drags on – Story by Megan Guza (Trib Live) / January 30, 2022
The stress of a two-year pandemic combined with an aging workforce and shortage of teachers has led to a critical staffing shortage among nurses.
Joy Peters, chief nursing officer for Allegheny Health Network’s Jefferson Hospital, said staffing levels in almost every department at Jefferson is down 30% to 40% of what they should be.
“Our census (number of patients) is high,” Peters said, “but we don’t have enough employees to take care of these patients that are coming in.”
It trickles down into the non-medical departments, too. For example, environmental services employees focus almost entirely on patient rooms, and they clean other areas of the hospital complex only once or twice a week.
CONTINUE > https://triblive.com/local/regional/pa-hospitals-wrestle-with-nursing-shortages-as-pandemic-drags/
