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Amaya Jones & Kendall Slater
April 4, 2024
All around the world there are many people struggling with healthcare, whether its lack of staff, high prices, long waiting times or just being denied healthcare all together.
Many nurses are leaving the medical-field because they are severely underpaid.
Many nurses quit during the pandemic. Therefore, not many nurses want to work in the medical-field anymore because it's too stressful, and they don't get paid enough for the job they do.
According to The National Library of Medicine “The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses reported that two out of three of their members have considered quitting due to COVID-19.”
Many nurses don't even get paid their salary until their late 30s.
This topic is SO important because many people with respiratory or cardiac issues need to seek healthcare almost immediately when they are short of breath, and they can't do that because healthcare is too expensive or too long of a wait for healthcare you might not even receive.
Some people don't struggle with paying or finding healthcare, so they don't understand the struggle of not finding health care for you or your loved ones.
All around the United States, there’s a growing problem. There's not enough healthcare providers on deck.
The decline in the number of healthcare providers is mainly because of the retirement rates going up.
This happens every few years, but it's a big problem now because of COVID-19. Around 2020, nurses and doctors began to quit and hospitals became crowded.
This happened because COVID was too overwhelming for medical professionals and they also quit for safety from the virus.
According to a new survey from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “About 100,000 registered nurses called it quits during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than half a million planning to leave the workforce by 2027.”
Retirement was getting popular within the profession because our current healthcare professionals are becoming older and it's harder for them to work.
Hospitals have changed since 2020, some medical professionals have returned, but others have not due to finding other jobs that are probably online and easier due to COVID-19.
With more of the younger generation graduating there's some younger people in the profession but there's still not enough doctors and nurses that have come back.
People needing medical attention still experience long waiting lines due to the lack of healthcare professionals we have.
This could be a huge health risk to people that need serious medical attention, putting these people in a dangerous, or even fatal position.
In July and August of 2023, Preeti Vankar surveyed about 1000 Americans from ages 16 to 74 on the biggest problem the healthcare system is facing.
Almost 55 percent of this portion of Americans say it is the cost of accessing treatment and 34 percent of Americans say the problem is not having enough staff.
Another major problem we experience in the medical field is the fact our healthcare professionals are underpaid. Because our nurses and doctors are underpaid, we don’t get the quality healthcare we deserve or the amount of nurses and doctors we need.
Since we don’t pay our doctors enough, we get doctors that are on the verge of retirement or doctors that are fresh out of college and they don’t have enough experience.
Considering the fact doctors are underpaid and the huge amount of college debt they have to deal with, it doesn’t sound like an ideal career to choose.
If we don't have enough doctors on deck at all times, it could be dangerous or even fatal.
We’re not too sure about what the future holds for medical centers. We can only hope with more of the new generation graduating, it will put more people into the workforce, specifically the medical field. Either way, the lack of medical professionals is an urgent issue that needs immediate attention.
Communities across the globe feel impacted by this issue. We shouldn’t have to experience long wait times, reduced access to care, and overburdened medical staff.
As we move forward, we need to focus on the severity of this issue and find solutions so we get the medical healthcare we so desperately deserve.
In the future, hopefully not, but less people will work in the medical field because of dealing with severe under payment, really overwhelming amounts of patients, and overall just a really stressful work environment.
As humans we need healthcare to live, especially when we get sick.
It's not ideal that we lack health care as much as we do, but we don't have the amount of healthcare we need because many nurses are severely underpaid, so we are severely understaffed.
It's important that nurses get paid the salary they deserve so citizens don't have to worry about waiting to be seen when they can be very sick or even dying.
We also need more people to look into working in the medical field for the same reason, people should not have to worry or stress about them, their children, or ANYONE in their families dying, or suffering simply because they cant access or afford the correct healthcare to keep them healthy.
Healthcare for everyone should be more simple for Americans to access. We should not be lacking health care as much as we are around the United states.
Photo Credit: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/global-health-worker-shortage-could-deny-millions-of-people-healthcare/136878/
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