Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Health and Human Services secretary, said the state is “lucky to get two-thirds” of its requests for travel nurses fulfilled right now. It’s a sharp contrast from the spring, when health care providers from California flew to New York to help their overworked colleagues. While larger hospital systems can stretch their staff, some smaller or unaffiliated hospitals do not have that ability and are a priority for state staffing assistance particularly with nurses and respiratory therapists, he said. Sara Houze, a traveling cardiac intensive care nurse from Washington, D.C., began a new assignment this week caring for COVID-19 patients on the brink of death in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Los Angeles. She said her online community of nurses is offering webinars about moral distress because many of them have had to change the way they care for patients.

Source: Daily Sun December 22, 2020 21:45 UTC