LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada is short more than 7,500 nurses amid an ongoing "tripledemic" of COVID-19, RSV, and influenza, the Nevada Hospital Association reports.
Dr. Shiven Chaudry is an internal medicine specialist travels to different hospitals in the Las Vegas valley to help patients. He says the common factor shared by all our facilities is a significant shortage of personnel.
"There are a lot of people that are in the hallways waiting for care," Chaudry said. "They're also waiting for medicine and medications."
During this rise in patients with respiratory infections, he says the medical field is overwhelmed.
“It's definitely above what we're used to seeing, and I think it's also going to lead to burnout," Chaudry said.
But burnout is exactly what Dr. Kara Garner, the director of nursing services at Grand Canyon University, is trying to avoid by doing what she can to get more nurses in the field.
Garner says her students are going through a fast-track training program designed to deliver a bachelor of science in nursing degree in 16 months. The accelerated training is targeting the dire shortage of nurses in our state.
"It is extremely alarming," Garner said. "Fifty-five percent of the nurse workforce is 50 and over, so you have Baby Boomers retiring."
Grand Canyon University hopes to attract younger workers to the field and graduate hundreds of nursing students in 2023.
"When we send them out to the clinical settings, they have to work with everything. Contagious or not contagious, they do it all, so that when they get out in the field they are ready," Garner said.
Chaudry says he looks forward to the arrival of the new medical personnel. He says with many hospitals over capacity, the work can be exhausting.
"It's a little discouraging to be a health care worker when you have, you know, we've just come through the pandemic for two years, and it seems like we're getting back into something similar now," Chaudry said.
Garner says there are plenty of openings at the school for more students to apply, but still even though there is a shortage of beds and personnel, doctors say do not be discouraged from going to the hospitals if you need care.
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