Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

Research on why nurses leave VA hospitals, by Dongjin Oh' and Keon-Hyung Lee, was reported in the October, 2022 issue of Armed Forces and Society (pp. 760-779). The biggest factor was emotional burnout and stress caused by the sense of loss, grief, and powerlessness over the frequent deaths of patients who they had long cared for. Far more patient deaths occur after VA hospitalization than in civilian hospitals since VA patients are older with many having been exposed to harmful environments during their military service. An excessive workload from the VA's policy of having nurses work overtime because of staff shortage reduced their ability to recover from grief. Being ordered to do time-consuming non-nursing tasks, and the lack of flexibility in work scheduling which would enable a healthy work/personal life balance, were other factors.
The same could be said of nurses who struggled through the COVID crisis at other hospitals where patient workloads were high and critical medical equipment and masks were often lacking.