Healthcare Heroes are Under More Stress and Strain

It Only Takes One Rude Patient to Ruin their Day

Healthcare is approaching its breaking point. Covid unleashed so many obstacles and roadblocks. I do not know how to begin.

First, many people have put off their annual check-ups for the past two years. And as you can rightly guess, it was because of the pandemic. Second, I will bet many people have not kept their yearly check-ups with their private medical, physician, cardiologist, endocrinologist, oncologist, etc.

The list of specialists can go on and on when you ask the patients why they did not follow up with their annual visits. The answer is echoed from one patient's lips to the next, "cause of Covid." I understand, and I cannot blame them. There was a mentality that going to the hospital or doctor's office entailed a risk of contracting Covid.

Covid seems to be "less of a threat" than it was two years ago. Is the threat of the covid pandemic subsiding? That is a topic in hot debate amongst the medical community. Regardless, that is the perception by many in the population. What is occurring now is the influx of patients who cannot wait to have their surgeries. Many patients have endured gall bladder attacks and decided to take "the darn thing out."

Their knees have been so painful they can hardly walk, let alone sleep at night. Patients are flooding their respective doctor's offices, expecting their surgeons to schedule their surgeries promptly. Reality check sets in. Their doctor is booked three months in advance for an office visit. After the office visit, we can then schedule your surgery. That is another 2–3 months of waiting. To put it in perspective, if a patient calls a surgeon for an operative evaluation today, surgery will be five or six months later.

Reality check number two; we do not have enough staffing. Many of our experienced healthcare providers were close to retirement age. Many decided it was not worth the risk to work at the hospital at their age. Many had medical conditions that put them at a higher risk. They reluctantly chose to retire. I cannot blame them.

When covid initially hit, the ICUs and ER were busy, and hospital wards slowly filled with covid patients. There was no more room to take patients for elective surgery. Big hospitals with 30 to 50 ORs ran 10 ORs from March 2020 until August 2020. The fear was that we didn't have enough masks and no vaccines then. If the number of covid patients spiked drastically, the anesthesia ORs were slotted to become ICU wards. No elective surgeries.

The anesthesia machines were capable of being used as ventilators if the pandemic reached a catastrophic spike. Hospitals make most of their revenues from ER visits and surgeries. If the OR cases drop dramatically, the financial integrity of the hospital is at risk. The drop in hospital revenues forced the hospitals to lay off many healthcare providers. I know of one ICU physician who regularly dealt with covid patients in the ICU who was unceremoniously "let go" by the hospital during the layoff spree in July of 2020.

The covid cases oscillated until they hit their peak in December 2020 and later in January 2021. As time went on, our armamentarium against Covid increased with monoclonal, antivirals, and vaccines. Masks were readily available. The world was slowly placing Covid back into the genie's bottle. Then Delta appeared, followed by its more infectious cousin, Omicron; the genie escaped from the bottle once more.

Now the hospitals were scrambling to find healthcare providers, and many retired. Many healthcare providers suffered from the stress and strain of the shifts, the human resources shortage that required every healthcare worker to care for more patients simultaneously, and long and frequent shifts.

Imagine twelve and fourteen-hour shifts caring for double the number of patients you usually cared for before the covid. Healthcare workers must stay at home for two weeks after contracting Covid. Someone had to cover their shifts for the two weeks they were sick with covid.

And as soon as one healthcare worker recovered, another healthcare provider fell ill with Covid. ER physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, physician assistants, and nurses frequently succumb to Omicron, which happens to be more infectious than its covid predecessors. Staffing was a huge problem, and it was bare-boned. After a while, people became exhausted, working past their shifts, or taking extra call assignments. It became taxing after taking so many additional calls. Nurses and physicians were muttering," I can't do it; I'm exhausted.

I don't care how much money you throw at me. I got to sleep and take a break. If I don't, I'm afraid I'll make a mistake." And they were right. They worked hard, past their shifts, and worked short-handed and understaffed. These super healthcare workers made it work in the most trying of times. So why am I writing all of this? There is a backlog of colonoscopies because people feared having their procedures scheduled during the pandemic. A two-year delay, and we are finding more and more polyps than usual during a typical exam. We are working longer hours to accommodate the influx of cases.

But, I had one patient who turned a hard day's work into a bad one. He not only complained, but he also called me a few NSFCL (Not safe for church ladies) words and phrases." I drove to one of our sister hospitals 40 miles away to cover the staffing shortage, worked in the OR with no breaks, skipped my lunch, and had this unruly patient complain to me because of a one-hour delay for his scheduled colonoscopy procedure. I smiled and bit my tongue. "O.K. I'm sorry for the delay."

Several patients ahead of him had more lengthy procedures because several polyps were discovered that required removal and to be sent to pathology to rule out cancer. Healthcare workers are thorough and will not take shortcuts. Every patient deserves a comprehensive exam. I may preach to the choir, but healthcare providers are heroes. They make a lot of sacrifices, and they keep on going because it is the right thing.

My call to action for you and your loved ones; take the time to care for yourselves. Suppose you haven't made an appointment for your annual physical; please do it now. Ladies, if you are due for a mammogram, Please schedule yours today. There may be a long backlog before you can find an opening. Men, please get your PSA checked. And most importantly, if you are 45 years old or older, get a colonoscopy; if you have a family history of colon cancer, get a colonoscopy sooner, at 35. Talk to your doctor. Great strides are being made in our fight against cancer; these strides are even better with early detection. Don't let Covid get in the way of your health.

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