CLEVELAND — Healthcare workers are battling mental and physical exhaustion as they face the omicron surge 22 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tuesday, two major healthcare systems in Northeast Ohio held a rare joint press conference, delivering a message to all Ohioans.
"Our ICUs are overwhelmed with patients, and it's not just our medical ICU where we're caring for the majority of our COVID patients, it's our surgical ICU, our neuro ICU and our pediatric ICU," said Shannon Pengel, Chief Nursing Officer for Cleveland Clinic.
Burnout, exhaustion, heartbreak, and even resignation are just some of what area healthcare workers are feeling as the omicron variant creates another wave of COVID-19 crashing over Northeast Ohio just in time for Christmas.
"We're seeing nurses that are leaving the bedside altogether and going into other professions which is very sad. Very skilled seasoned caregivers we are losing," Pengel said.
Some who left needed a break from treating COVID patients, others took early retirement rather than face more COVID.
This leaves remaining nurses with more patients in their care, and this surge feels like a different kind of storm to those inside our local ICUs.
"It just literally breaks my heart every time I have to put somebody on a breathing machine. Just because it was preventable, they could've gotten vaccinated," said Dr. Raed Dweik from Cleveland Clinic.
Depending on the hospital, 80 to 90 percent of those being admitted are not vaccinated.
So, at a joint press conference today between University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, they talked about Cuyahoga being the third worst county in the country when it comes to COVID rates.
The plea was simple: Get vaccinated.
"We trail by anywhere from 10 to 12 percent vaccination from the rest of the country," Dr. Daniel Simon with University Hospitals added.
As Christmas closes in, even while taking care of more sick patients, healthcare workers are trying to get small gifts to families who can't visit, or lost someone to the virus.
"Things such as thumbprint ornaments and artwork for parents and children to remember their loved ones by," Pengel said.
Another trend hospitals are seeing is nurses quitting to become travel nurses.
They join an agency and travel the state or even the country going where they're needed most. Our local hospitals have agency nurses providing care right now.
You can watch Tuesday's Cleveland Clinic/University Hospitals briefing in the player below:
More Coverage:
- Ohio reports more than 12,000 cases in a 24 hour period, highest daily case increase of the entire pandemic
- 'We need your help now more than ever': Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals address impact of COVID surge
- New Cleveland COVID-19 testing site stops accepting additional patients Tuesday due to high demand
- Northeast Ohio doctors report seeing more children in the hospital with COVID-19