Mario Tama/Getty Images
- 81% of nurses reported reusing masks and gowns in February, per a National Nurses United survey.
- The US faced mask and gown shortages due to a lack of federal coordination to stockpile equipment.
- Nurses could burnout from dealing with the same workplace issues for the entire pandemic.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Nurses still aren't getting enough masks or regular testing a year into the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the National Nurses Union.
Eighty-one percent of nurses said they reused single-use masks and gowns in February, according to the NNU survey of 9,200 registered nurses. A similar survey conducted between April and May of last year found 87% of the 23,000 nurses surveyed reused personal protective gear.
In addition to reusing protective gear, 61% of hospital nurses in the survey said they had never been tested for COVID-19, and nearly half said staffing has gotten "slightly or much worse recently."
In March 2020, when cases of the new coronavirus (which causes the COVID-19 disease) remained below 200,000 globally, nurses told Insider that hospitals had begun rationing masks and other equipment. As COVID-19 patients began crowding hospitals, the PPE shortage got so bad nurses resorted to using trash bags as gowns.
Exactly one year later, a promising vaccine rollout could greatly reduce the threat of COVID-19, but the NNU survey suggests many frontline nurses are burning out from dealing with the same problems.
"We are a year into this deadly pandemic and hospitals are still failing to provide the vital resources needed to ensure safety for nurses, patients, and health care staff," NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo said in a release.
Why nurses are still reusing masks
A year ago, nurses painted a harrowing picture of unprepared hospitals bracing for COVID-19.
Hospital nurses, who spend more time at patient bedsides than other healthcare workers, said the PPE shortage would expose them and their families to the disease. NNU members held a protest in April outside the White House to demand more protective gear.
The PPE shortage stems in part from the Trump administration's reluctance to coordinate and fund mass equipment stockpiling efforts. Though Shikha Gupta, executive director of the advocacy group Get Us PPE, recently told NPR the shortages are not as widespread as they were last year, supplies vary depending on the state.
As a result, nurses report reusing single-use N95 masks, which the Centers for Disease Control said become contaminated with extended use.
Many nurses also said hospitals were unprepared to fill demand for equipment, and some punished nurses who brought attention to the lack of resources. HCA Healthcare, the country's largest hospital system, told nurses and doctors it could fire those who speak publicly about policies surrounding equipment and patient care.
How the pandemic could lead to long-term consequences for nurses
Nurses faced the highest death toll out of all other healthcare roles during the pandemic. Of the 3,539 healthcare workers who have died from COVID-19, 32% were nurses, according to Kaiser Health News and The Guardian.
Nurses recently told Insider the lack of support from the government and employers, as well as the exhaustion from working during the outbreak, could lead to a mass exodus from the profession.
"I have talked to a lot of doctors and nurses who have told me 'I'm going to quit,'" Kristen Choi, a psychiatric nurse in Los Angeles, previously told Insider.
The NNU survey points to mental health stressors among registered nurses: 57% reported feeling more anxious than before the pandemic, and 43% said they had more trouble sleeping this year.
A lack of hospital nurses can lead to worse patient care. A study in the American Journal of Infection Control recently found assigning nurses to care for too many patients at once leads to higher rate of mortality from sepsis. Research from Australia suggests higher nurses-to-patient ratios can save lives and lead to less readmission.
Though there is currently no reliable data on how many nurses left the profession due to the COVID-19 outbreak, a recent report from Emory University found one-third of nurses who left their job in 2017 did so due to burnout.
"This survey shines light on how hospital administrators are continuing to jeopardize one of society's most valuable workforces during Covid-19, registered nurses, by prioritizing profits over basic safety and infection control measures," Castillo said.