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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted healthcare workers physically and psychologically. [1] Healthcare workers are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection than the general population due to frequent contact with infected individuals. Healthcare workers have been required to work under stressful conditions without proper protective equipment, and make difficult decisions involving ethical implications. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity. [2] [3]
The World Health Organization reported that one in ten health workers is infected with coronavirus in some countries. [1] In March 2020, 9% of those affected with COVID-19 in Italy were health workers. [4] In May 2020, the International Council of Nurses reported that at least 90,000 healthcare workers have been infected and more than 260 nurses had died in the COVID-19 pandemic. [5] In March 2020, one in four doctors in the UK were off sick, in isolation or caring for a family member with COVID-19. [6]
The UK government announced that retired healthcare professionals would be brought out of retirement to help during the COVID-19 crisis. This led to concerns that they could be at a higher risk for severe COVID-19 illness. [7]
Shortcomings of personal protective equipment have been reported from several countries. [8] [7] In China, inadequate staff training, shortage of PPEs, reduced understanding of PPE use and confused PPE guidance have resulted in infections and deaths among healthcare workers. [9]
In the United States, many hospitals have reported a shortage of PPE for hospital staff. [10] As COVID-19 cases increase, it is suggested that the United States will need far more surgical masks than they currently have. [10]
One unique study used a qualitative style of research by conducting interviews to record nurses’ feedback on staff shortages, long hours, and uncooperative patients. One profound participant responded, “I am not able to sleep at all and even if I do then by that time it is already time to wake up”. [11] The nurses have been overworked by having to fill in for staff shortages on top of the more demanding working conditions. Another response read, “wearing PPE was the most troublesome. No food or water for 12 h”. [11] PPE accessibility varied in many countries, but all countries faced similar shortages of the proper supplies to protect them when working in a highly infectious environment every day.
The shortage of PPE has put many healthcare workers at risks for getting infected with COVID-19. Healthcare workers have created unconventional solutions to make up for the lack of PPE by using the resources they do have in stock. Healthcare workers have definitely had to get creative when it comes to PPE! They have used plastic bags as gowns and plastic water bottle cutouts for eye protection. [12] The shortage of PPE is even worse for hospitals in low income communities. Items such as PPE have always been scare commodities in low income countries. [13] Low income countries also are receiving the vaccine at a slower rate due to unequal distribution. Developing countries can not properly store and produce the vaccine to be able to vaccinate the population as quick as other developed countries. UICEF reported that the organization was only able to acquire one tenth of the 240 million masks requested by these communities. [13] While PPE becomes less effective at protecting against illness as it is reused, prolonged wear also causes skin damage for 97% of healthcare workers. [14] Skin damage is most commonly occurring on the bridge of the nopse, caused by irritation from face masks.
Nurse and doctor deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported from several countries. [4] [15] In May 2020, they added that at least 260 nurses have died due to COVID-19. In March 2020, at least 50 doctors were reported to have died in Italy due to COVID-19. [16] The number of deaths in Italy continued to go up. By April 2020, the estimated number of medical doctor deaths was about 119 and for nurses about 34. [17] Two of the deaths within those who were nurses were suicides due to unsustainable pressure at work. [17]
On 8 August 2020, the Indian Medical Association announced that 198 doctors have died in India due to COVID-19. [18] By February 2021, the Indian Medical Association said the number of deaths of doctor in India due to COVID-19 had increased to 734; [19] [20] however the government of India said that only 162 doctors had died due to COVID-19. [19]
At this point in time, it seems like everyone is struggling with understaffing, this is also true for the healthcare field. Even before the pandemic understaffing in the medical field was not uncommon throughout history. However, through the Covid fight, the impact of understaffing has been amplified. In an observational research study, Lasater and other researchers, showed that nurses' workloads were very high and that half of the nursing staff was experiencing burnout. [21] It was also discovered that “Unfavourable patient and nurse outcomes are strongly associated with poorer nurse staffing”. [21] Without the proper staffing to handle the influx of Covid patients nurses can not provide patients with the best care. They simply do not have the employees to account for all the patients.
COVID-19 has affected everyone and, “The nursing literature and social media are awash with stories of nurses exhausted, frightened, sometimes discriminated against, feeling burnt out, overworked, demoralized by ineffectual leadership of governments and health systems, or frustrated with the indifference of the public to adhere to public health regulations''. [22] These challenges are impacting the nursing community so much that it is affecting them mentally and physically. Burnout in nurses is very serious and without intervention, it leads to diminished patient care. Not only do these nurses have to deal with the added stress of being overworked, but they are also falling victim to the virus as well. “ICN's believes that about 10% of COVID-19 cases globally are among healthcare workers”. [22] Nurses are the publics’ defense in the pandemic, but because of the lacking resources, the nurses cannot totally protect themselves or provide the best patient care. Learning from and adapting from problems is exactly how they are solved. Solutions are not instantaneous and they are not always apparent, but as they say “where there's a will there's a way”. In another research study its brought to light that during the pandemic perceived stress was lowered, because of the national support. [23] This study shows that nurses are resilient and are rising to the new challenges with the support of others.
A study from Singapore showed that healthcare workers caring for patients with COVID-19 reported anxiety, depression and stress. [26] Increasing work demands on healthcare professionals conflict with their duties to family and friends, which causes psychological stress. [7] Healthcare professionals reported being anxious about having to self-isolate, quarantine or becoming ill. [27] For healthcare workers, being quarantined was positively associated with minimizing direct contact with patients and not reporting to work. [28]
Healthcare workers like nurses, doctors and other medical staff that worked on the front-lines in China experienced symptoms of anxiety, depression and difficulty sleeping. [29] More specifically, about 46.04% had anxiety, 44.37% had depression, and 28.75% experienced insomnia. [29] In Wuhan, China, over 70% of healthcare workers reported psychological distress. [30]
Healthcare workers are at risk for developing trauma or other stress-related disorders due to fears of falling ill and not knowing what will happen in the future. [31] Post-traumatic stress was common among health workers, with nurses demonstrating a higher likelihood of developing or having anxiety among others in the medical field. [32]
An Italian nurse committed suicide after being traumatized trying to save the lives of those with COVID-19. [33]
In Mexico, healthcare professional have also reported high levels of anxiety, because of the fear of being an asymptomatic patient, which could potentially lead to the unknowingly spread of the disease amongst their patients and their families. [34]
Higher levels of depression and burnout have been seen in healthcare workers as a direct result of COVID-19. In one experiment scientists reported that “more than 28% of the sample reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, except for other non-COVID healthcare workers” [35] In addition more than 50% of the sample reported low levels of depersonalization, except for COVID nurses and physicians, who reported high levels of depersonalization in 36.73% of the cases. [35] Depersonalization can be defined as a sense of detachment from oneself and one's identity. Taking this into consideration, it is easy to conclude that as a result of COVID-19 the mental health of health care workers has degraded. In addition, when evaluating the results of another study led by Dr. Woon et al., the prevalence rates of depression as a result of COVID-19 were as high as 21.8% and participants with extremely severe depression made up 13.3% of the sample. [36]
The severity of these psychological impacts on healthcare workers in the United States has even resulted in stress-related illnesses which could cause serious health related issues. [37] Some of these stress-related illnesses include cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal symptoms, and musculoskeletal disorders. [38]
It is possible that these statistics may be so significant due to self-isolating or being in quarantine. Wu et al. explain that after conducting their research they had found that those who have participated in these activities reported more symptoms of depression. [39] In contrast, researchers suspect that the depression and/ or burnout that healthcare workers are experiencing may not be from COVID-19 directly, but as a result of the situation it has put their families in and/or themselves in. It is said that as a result of COVID-19 the workload of healthcare providers has increased tremendously, possibly leaving the worker feeling drained and unable to catch up.
Due to the stress from the Coronavirus many nurses are facing compassion fatigue and burnout. Part of burnout is due to a nursing shortage, there are more patients than nurses are used to taking care of at once. Increasing workload has made longer shifts for most nurses, lack of enthusiasm, and many have become emotionally drained. [40]
As the COVID-19 pandemic escalated, widespread anxiety grew and culminated in decreased desire and interest to pursue hospital-based care. Consider the intense fear of a patient adamantly refusing to visit a health facility and resorting to recuperate from the comfort of their homes to avoid the COVID-19 anguish. The anxiety was far-reaching as the COVID-19 scare deepened. Patients, especially those with underlying or chronic conditions chose to stay at home or seek alternative interventions just to avoid interacting with medical personnel or appearing in public spaces. Albeit being driven by formed opinion, their hesitation and self-preservation offer clear lenses through which to view the existing gaps within the public health discourse. It was the hallmark of public health breakdown as unchecked and un-intervened health conditions aggravated. It also subjected public health to scrutiny as patients skipped or delayed routine screenings while emergent ailments remained undressed. The COVID-19 pandemic scare yielded profound implications for populations, questioning the overall posture and prospect of public health interventions.
The COVID-19 scare resulted in massive avoidance and deferrals across healthcare settings with many patients resorting to stay home or seeking alternative interventions to avoid contracting the virus. Literature highlights that avoidance and deferral behaviors and trends can trigger debilitating health outcomes. These behaviors create enabling conditions for diseases to flare up and become less manageable. The trend is typical of delayed diagnoses, which enable the progression of chronic conditions leading to increased casualties. The psychological impact culminating in avoidance and deferral presents scholars with new lenses for analyzing these trends.
The COVID-19 scare resulted in massive avoidance and deferrals across healthcare settings with many patients resorting to stay home or seeking alternative interventions to avoid contracting the virus. Literature highlights that avoidance and deferral behaviors and trends can trigger debilitating health outcomes. These behaviors create enabling conditions for diseases to flare up and become less manageable. The trend is typical of delayed diagnoses, which enable the progression of chronic conditions leading to increased casualties. The psychological impact culminating in avoidance and deferral presents scholars with new lenses for analyzing these trends.
The COVID-19 pandemic created extensive anxiety across diverse healthcare settings. These anxieties resulted in systematic avoidance and deferrals as populations resorted to the behaviors in response to the COVID-19 scare. These trends affected populations across diverse demographics, leading to debilitating care outcomes. Future efforts should foster innovative strategies such as telehealth, public education, and patient-centered interventions to expand healthcare scope and reduce the overall impact related to public health scare.
In India, during the peak of the second wave of COVID-19, a before-after image of an Indian doctor named Dr. Sohil Makwana wearing a PPE kit and drenched in sweat after removing the PPE kit went viral internationally. That image represented the condition of all doctors and frontline workers, and it created awareness about how cumbersome for doctors to work for unrealistically long hours inside PPE kits amid the rapid second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [25] The image clearly resonated with many, as it was retweeted nearly 17,000 times and received more than 132,000 likes. [50]
Healthcare workers have been subjected to violent crimes, such as assault. Hospitals and governments have taken stricter measures to ensure the safety of their staff; however, many healthcare workers still face significant risk of physical injury. [51]
Because of COVID-19, healthcare personnel have experienced over 600 instances of negativity directed towards them in different forms. In Pakistan, doctors were attacked by family members of a deceased patient who succumbed to COVID-19. Residents of a community in Bangladesh forced a doctor who was COVID-19 positive and his family to leave his home and the area by throwing bricks at their home. [52]
The Conversation reports that healthcare workers will have to face 'moral injury' for making difficult decisions such as moving a patient off the ventilator or refusing an ICU bed due to limited resources. [7] COVID-19 has forced healthcare workers to make many difficult ethical decisions. These include concerns for the safety of spreading COVID-19 to their families since the risk is higher when they work and care for COVID-19 patients, deciding how to distribute limited resources such as ventilators among many patients who all need it, and deciding at what point healthcare workers should stay home instead of continue to go to work if they suspect they might have been exposed to COVID-19. [53]
Two studies have shown that nurses during the pandemic are facing extreme stress. Nurses are experiencing one of the highest rates of occupational stress compared to other professions. COVID-19 has changed the way nurses care for patients, many patients needed to have virtual appointments rather than face to face care because of nurses caring for patients with COVID-19. This also has been shown in several studies that isolation meant that nurses could not go home to their loved ones, making that a virtual experience too. [54] They feared that they would infect their loved ones at home, so many did not see their families for extended periods of time. [55] Many nurses stated that they feel unsafe in their work environment, risking their own health, and a lack of support by their organization.
Globally, women make up 70 percent of workers in the health and social sector. Women are playing a disproportionate role in responding to the disease, whether that be as front line healthcare workers, careers at home or community leaders and mobilisers. In some countries, COVID-19 infections among female health workers are twice that of their male counterparts. [56] [57] [58] Women are still paid much less than their male counterparts in almost all countries and hold fewer leadership positions in the health sector. Masks and other protective equipment designed and sized for men leave women at greater risk of exposure. [56] [57] [58] [59]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of burnout are higher in female healthcare workers than male workers. The percentage of females enduring anxiety while working in healthcare if over twice as much as males. [60] [61] Female healthcare workers were 55% more likely to report burnout compared to their male coworkers.
The pandemic caused the nursing community a lot of stress. A national cross-sectional survey found that “71.4% of doctors and 74.4% of nurses experienced moderate-to-severe perceived stress”. [62] In another Covid based study, the nurses all share common themes that include, working over hours, fear of contraction, limited supplies, endless patients, and self-sacrifice. [63] Similarly in a cross-sectional survey, the researchers concluded that a high percentage of the resilient nurses surveyed report high-stress levels and/or PTSD symptoms. [64] The survey also identifies eight major themes, “revealed from nurses' free-text responses: (a) working in an isolated environment, (b) PPE shortage and the discomfort of pronged usage, (c) sleep problems, (d) intensity of workload, (e) cultural and language barriers, (f) lack of family support, (g) fear of being infected, and (h) insufficient work experiences with COVID-19” [64] A lot of these concerns are a direct result or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent shortage of nurses has caused a nursing burnout which is affecting individuals and their workloads. Nurses are having an increase level of stress and mental disorders due to the increase in workload and number of patients they are getting. [65]
The World Health Organization has given the following key recommendations to decrease the spread of COVID-19 among healthcare workers: [1]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidance on preventing transmission and reducing job stress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare workers:
A 2020 Cochrane review found that among healthcare workers there is low certainty evidence that resilience training may lead to greater levels of individual resilience for healthcare workers. [68] Due to limitations in the reviewed studies (44 RCTs), the authors advise caution in drawing definitive conclusions and recommend more studies with improved designs. [68]
Other recommendations:
UNFPA recommends that all women and girls must have access to a continuum of sexual and reproductive health services. In accordance to national guidelines and standards, some services for women and girls include antenatal, perinatal and postnatal care, and screening tests. [2] [3]
The Karolinska Institute recommends health workers to take care of oneself, avoid unhelpful strategies, stay in touch with loved ones, not blame oneself and reach out if physical or psychological help is required. [71]
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO( license statement/permission ). Text taken from Explainer: How COVID-19 impacts women and girls , UN Women.
Telenursing refers to the use of information technology in the provision of nursing services whenever physical distance exists between patient and nurse, or between any number of nurses. As a field, it is part of telemedicine, and has many points of contacts with other medical and non-medical applications, such as telediagnosis, teleconsultation, and telemonitoring. The field, however, is still being developed as the information on telenursing isn't comprehensive enough.
Compassion fatigue is an evolving concept in the field of traumatology. The term has been used interchangeably with secondary traumatic stress (STS), which is sometimes simply described as the negative cost of caring. Secondary traumatic stress is the term commonly employed in academic literature, although recent assessments have identified certain distinctions between compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress (STS).
A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physician, physician assistant, registered dietitian, veterinarian, veterinary technician, optometrist, pharmacist, pharmacy technician, medical assistant, physical therapist, occupational therapist, dentist, midwife, psychologist, audiologist, or healthcare scientist, or who perform services in allied health professions. Experts in public health and community health are also health professionals.
The healthcare delivery system of Pakistan is complex because it includes healthcare subsystems by federal governments and provincial governments competing with formal and informal private sector healthcare systems. Healthcare is delivered mainly through vertically managed disease-specific mechanisms. The different institutions that are responsible for this include: provincial and district health departments, parastatal organizations, social security institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector. The country's health sector is also marked by urban-rural disparities in healthcare delivery and an imbalance in the health workforce, with insufficient health managers, nurses, paramedics and skilled birth attendants in the peripheral areas. Pakistan's gross national income per capita in 2021 was $4,990 and the total expenditure on health per capita in 2021 was Rs 657.2 Billion, constituting 1.4% of the country's GDP. The health care delivery system in Pakistan consists of public and private sectors. Under the constitution, health is primarily responsibility of the provincial government, except in the federally administered areas. Health care delivery has traditionally been jointly administered by the federal and provincial governments with districts mainly responsible for implementation. Service delivery is being organized through preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services. The curative and rehabilitative services are being provided mainly at the secondary and tertiary care facilities. Preventive and promotive services, on the other hand, are mainly provided through various national programs; and community health workers’ interfacing with the communities through primary healthcare facilities and outreach activities. The state provides healthcare through a three-tiered healthcare delivery system and a range of public health interventions. Some government/ semi government organizations like the armed forces, Sui Gas, WAPDA, Railways, Fauji Foundation, Employees Social Security Institution and NUST provide health service to their employees and their dependants through their own system, however, these collectively cover about 10% of the population. The private health sector constitutes a diverse group of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, traditional healers, drug vendors, as well as laboratory technicians, shopkeepers and unqualified practitioners.
A nursing shortage occurs when the demand for nursing professionals, such as Registered Nurses (RNs), exceeds the supply locally—within a healthcare facility—nationally or globally. It can be measured, for instance, when the nurse-to-patient ratio, the nurse-to-population ratio, the number of job openings necessitates a higher number of nurses than currently available, or the current number of nurses is above a certain age where retirement becomes an option and plays a factor in staffing making the workforce in a higher need of nurses. The nursing shortage is global according to 2022 World Health Organization fact sheet.
Nursing is a profession within the healthcare sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses can be differentiated from other healthcare providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses practice in many specialties with differing levels of prescription authority. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments; but there is evidence of international shortages of qualified nurses. Nurses collaborate with other healthcare providers such as physicians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, and psychologists. There is a distinction between nurses and nurse practitioners; in the U.S., the latter are nurses with a graduate degree in advanced practice nursing, and are permitted to prescribe medications unlike the former. They practice independently in a variety of settings in more than half of the United States. Since the postwar period, nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials, and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing.
Workplace safety in healthcare settings is similar to the workplace safety concerns in most occupations, but there are some unique risk factors, such as chemical exposures, and the distribution of injuries is somewhat different from the average of all occupations. Injuries to workers in healthcare settings usually involve overexertion or falling, such as strained muscles from lifting a patient or slipping on a wet floor. There is a higher than average risk of violence from other people, and a lower than average risk of transportation-related injuries.
The ICD-11 of the World Health Organization (WHO) describes occupational burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy." It is classified as a mismatch between the challenges of work and a person's mental and physical resources, but is not recognized as a standalone medical condition, apart from the diagnosis of exhaustion disorder, which is only used in Sweden.
The nursing organization workplace has been identified as one in which workplace bullying occurs quite frequently. It is thought that relational aggression are relevant. Relational aggression has been studied amongst girls but rarely amongst adult women. According to a finding, 74% of the nurses, 100% of the anesthetists, and 80% of surgical technologists have experienced or witnessed uncivil behaviors like bullying by nursing faculty. There have been many incidents that have occurred throughout the past couple of years. OSHA, which stands for "Occupational Safety and Health Administration" stated that from 2011 to 2013, the United States healthcare workers experienced 15,000 to 20,000 significant injuries while in the workplace.
Secondary trauma can be incurred when an individual is exposed to people who have been traumatized themselves, disturbing descriptions of traumatic events by a survivor, or others inflicting cruelty on one another. Symptoms of secondary trauma are similar to those of PTSD. Secondary trauma has been researched in first responders, nurses and physicians, mental health care workers, and children of traumatized parents.
The role of spirituality in health care has received significant research attention due to its benefits for patients and health care professionals. Integrating spirituality in healthcare can enhance healthcare professionals' ability to communicate effectively with patients and families. It can also have a positive impact on the health and well-being of patients due to its potential to enhance patients' ability to cope with illness and achieve better physical and mental health outcomes. As per 2014, more than 70 medical schools in the United States offer courses on spirituality and medicine. The Association of American Medical Colleges has co-sponsored, with the National Institute for Healthcare Research, four conferences, on curricular development in spirituality and medicine since 1997.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease itself and efforts to quarantine it, including political, cultural, and social implications.
Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic are pandemic-related disruptions to goods production and distribution, insufficient inventories, and disruptions to workplaces caused by infections and public policy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the mental health of people across the globe. The pandemic has caused widespread anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. According to the UN health agency WHO, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, prevalence of common mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, went up by more than 25 percent. The pandemic has damaged social relationships, trust in institutions and in other people, has caused changes in work and income, and has imposed a substantial burden of anxiety and worry on the population. Women and young people face the greatest risk of depression and anxiety.
Colleen S. Kraft is an infectious disease physician, associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Clinical Virology Research Laboratory at Emory University School of Medicine. In 2014, she led Emory University Hospital's effort to treat and care for Ebola virus disease patients and is currently working to address the COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia. She currently serves on Georgia's COVID-19 task force.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted hospitals around the world. Many hospitals have scaled back or postponed non-emergency care. This has medical consequences for the people served by the hospitals, and it has financial consequences for the hospitals. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Health facilities in many places are closing or limiting services. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity. The pandemic also resulted in the imposition of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in places such as California and New York for all public workers, including hospital staff.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had many impacts on global health beyond those caused by the COVID-19 disease itself. It has led to a reduction in hospital visits for other reasons. There have been 38 per cent fewer hospital visits for heart attack symptoms in the United States and 40 per cent fewer in Spain. The head of cardiology at the University of Arizona said, "My worry is some of these people are dying at home because they're too scared to go to the hospital." There is also concern that people with strokes and appendicitis are not seeking timely treatment. Shortages of medical supplies have impacted people with various conditions.
There is increasing evidence suggesting that COVID-19 causes both acute and chronic neurologicalor psychological symptoms. Caregivers of COVID-19 patients also show a higher than average prevalence of mental health concerns. These symptoms result from multiple different factors.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospitals became severe for some hospital systems of the United States in the spring of 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic began. Some had started to run out of beds, along with having shortages of nurses and doctors. By November 2020, with 13 million cases so far, hospitals throughout the country had been overwhelmed with record numbers of COVID-19 patients. Nursing students had to fill in on an emergency basis, and field hospitals were set up to handle the overflow.
There has been a nursing shortage in Canada for decades. This became more acute in the period between 1943 and 1952 as Canada's health services were expanding, and the number of hospital beds increased along with the number of hospitalizations. By the mid-1940s across Canada the shortage, estimated at 8,700, led to a re-organization and re-conceptualization of nursing in Canada, according to a 2020 journal article in BC Studies. The nature of nursing was changing with new and time-consuming responsibilities, such as the administration of penicillin. During that period, there was no unemployment for nurses, especially if they were willing to be mobile. However, working conditions for nurses were very poor, with low wages combined with long hours; nursing force retention was challenging. As well, since almost all nurses were women, they had responsibilities at home they had to manage. In response to the shortage of nurses, women who had trained as registered nurses (RNs) but had left the workforce when they married, were encouraged to return to work; volunteers were engaged; nursing courses were accelerated; and new categories of regulated nursing were added to registered nursing—"practical nurses" and "nursing assistants." At that time, a "utopia of nursing" referred to teams of nursing staff which included registered nurses and other regulated nursing and hospital worker support personnel. Some of these auxiliary positions were also open to First Nations women and other racialized groups.