The Crucial Contribution Of Nurses To The Battle Against Covid-19 : The novel COVID-19 has affected all aspects of everyone in one way or another. The coronavirus, which initially originated from Wuhan, China, quickly spread like wildfire. On March 11, WHO declared the novel coronavirus as a global pandemic.
After the declaration, the whole world went under strict lockdown that closed all industries, businesses, educational institutions, but not healthcare. Only the healthcare sector was encouraged to prepare for what is coming ahead in unprecedented times. The large scale infections overwhelmed the healthcare system, thus causing the strain on the frontline workers.
Nurses are one of the significant frontline workers in the healthcare sector that have majorly contributed to the battle of COVID-19. Nurses of today have proven to safeguard the people’s health by putting their lives on the brink of a deadly virus. COVID-19 has placed our focus on the nurses and their prominent role in the fight against the pandemic. It is no surprise that they were as crucial as before. However, as the confirmed infections continuously increase, the demand for nurses in healthcare subsequently surged. Nurses always served a prime role in healthcare in many outbreaks and pandemics like H1N1 swine flu, Ebola, SARS, and MERS. With that said, let’s discuss the crucial contributions of nurses to the battle against COVID-19.
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Stepping Up To Serve
As soon as the novel coronavirus got declared from outbreak to pandemic, numerous nurses came forward to serve the patients. Since nurses make up to the significant working force in healthcare, they significantly helped the healthcare sectors in these crises. According to the 2020 World’s Nursing Report, the total number of nurses working staff is 27.9 million. From these figures, 19.3 million are professional registered nurses. No doubt that the nursing career is going to experience a significant demand in the future. The shortages of nursing will result in a gap of 5.9 million additional nurses in the coming year. Moreover, many students consider professional education to fill this rising demand for nurses in the healthcare sector.
Not just that, but students are well aware of the combination of technological advancement and its role in the healthcare industry. Students consider the benefits of DNP over MSN programs to expand their technology and evolving professional field skills. Now nurses are given more responsibilities for screening, testing for infections, taking care of the patients in the hospitals, etc. it was all possible with professional education and training for the technological tools implemented in patient care today. The latest pandemic has turned the nurses’ everyday lives and imposed the latest challenges to provide efficient health services.
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Patient Care
Patient care might seem like a general term for many people. But in this age of crisis, it is much more than just patient healthcare. As said earlier, in the early days of pandemics, hospitals were overwhelmed with patients that got infected with the novel COVID-19. It did not stop the nurses from taking a break and leave the healthcare sectors. However, they came forward to face the threat head-on and directly managed all kinds of patients. Nurses served their major roles by processing and assessing the information efficiently to treat patients with adequate care.
Nurses were ideal for this task. The main reason for that is they are well aware of dealing with patient’s health needs. Moreover, the nurses easily got trained for preventive measures against the coronavirus and how to limit the spread. The patients who tested positive got assigned to the respective nurses after being moved to the isolation wards. These practices are paving the way for nurses to defeat the healthcare crisis of pandemic in the future.
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Managing Medical Supplies And Equipment
Apart from providing the best healthcare services to the patients, nurses manage the limited medical supplies. At the early stages of the pandemic, the US faced significant problems of shortages of masks and testing kits for the healthcare sectors. Nurses faced substantial challenges in using masks, gloves, and other protective gear to deal with COVID-19 patients. However, they were still able to manage the resources in the harsh times of crisis.
Since the medical supplies were already scarce, the available supplies and equipment are also essential. Nurses are still using their skills to ensure the supplies got adequately used without any potential theft threat.
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The Nurse Advocates
Despite the demand on the front lines, the pandemic also led to higher shortages of nurse advocates. The latest education is training the nurses to provide advocacy for the patients. However, the higher demands of front lines nurses have increased the healthcare needs for nurse advocates. Many nurses are majorly providing advocates services for the vulnerable populations who are affected by the pandemic. They are playing a vital role in protecting their rights while giving various healthcare services.
It helps the healthcare sectors to provide accurate and fundamental healthcare services to all levels of society. Moreover, these nurses are also providing data-centered information about the disease on media platforms to spread awareness about the pandemic.
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Working Overtime
Nurses are vital resources of the healthcare sectors. Meanwhile, the pandemic has placed an enormous strain on the nurses to treat different patients and meet their health demands. With this strain, nurses work overtime to fill the patients’ workflow and efficient care gaps. In some countries, retired nurses have to return to the workplace to treat patients. The unprecedented overtime is causing mental health issues on the nurses. Not just that, but being cut-off from the family and getting assigned on the frontline is undoubtedly challenging.
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Spreading Knowledge And Awareness
Nurses are also striving to produce and spread knowledge about the transmission of the novel coronavirus. Most of the cases, many people are unaware of the pandemic threats and never care to know about the surfaces’ sanitization. For the frontline workers, the nurses are taking up the responsibility to educate the patients for the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses have always received appreciation for sharing knowledge and providing the necessary care to the patients. It is no doubt that they are making even more efforts than before.
Conclusion
Nurses play a crucial role in the healthcare sector. There are countless stories that nurses have marked their contribution with their efforts to provide healthcare to people. COVID-19 mitigation strategies will become inclusive in the healthcare sector. That means the nurses will continuously support the healthcare sectors to ensure their safety and advocate for social inequality and human rights.
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