
I was sitting in the backseat of an Uber last week when the driver said something that stunned me. Exhausted and emotionally defeated, after a 10-hour shift in full PPE, this Uber driver asked me how my day had been. "Tiring," I replied.
He responded with, "But you’re a nurse, you signed up for this."
I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I stared out the window, watching the trees and people pass us by as I fought back tears of fatigue and frustration. I have been a nurse for 10 years but I didn’t sign up for this. None of us did.
Watch: Victorian nurse unit manager Michelle Spence talks about treating anti-vax patients. Post continues after video.
When I became a nurse, I was filled with grand ideas of the difference that I would make in people’s lives, that I would be a part of groundbreaking surgeries, I would save the lives of Victorians and get to travel the world off the back of my registration. When I became a nurse at 21, I was full of optimism and dreams... but this is a nightmare.
The Uber driver was not the first person to tell me that I signed up to be a nurse, but the previous times I received these comments were at the start of the pandemic, not two years in. I had hoped that people had developed a little more respect for healthcare workers over the past two years, but he is just as tired and over it as I am. He is also, in my opinion, being gaslit by the federal government into believing that the healthcare system is ready and coping.
We are not.
We are struggling. We are crumbling. The healthcare system is failing, and I am terrified that it is too late and that Victorians will suffer, unnecessarily, as a result.
People might read that last sentence and think I’m being slightly alarmist, but it’s not much of a stretch.
READ: 'We are burnt out.' The reality of working in a NSW hospital right now.
This week, my hospital has over 400 staff in isolation with COVID and a further 250 in quarantine. The Royal Children’s Hospital has over 390 healthcare workers in isolation with COVID and more than 350 workers in quarantine. These numbers are reflected across all tertiary Melbourne hospitals, ambulance and aged care facilities. Healthcare workers are stretched to breaking point, and Victorians lives are being put on the line.
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