I've been lurking on a subreddit for nurses, and it's been an eye-opener. Check out these sample threads:

"Whole Groups Dying"

Sample post - "I can't go into too much detail, but I had a COVID+ patient die today and his adult child isn't far behind. I held his hand while his remaining family watched through the window. Over the last couple of weeks, we lost 3 guys in their 40s from the same office. We're seeing COVID tear through entire groups of people. It's so needless and easily avoided. I'm tired."

Another - "Had a woman in her 50's drive her best friend to the ER, turned out to be COVID. She got it and brought it home to her husband and 30 year old son. In the end her best friend, the friends husband, her husband, and her son all died. She was the only one to live. We had an ethics consult and debate on when and how to inform her."

And another - "I’m outpatient and thankfully my demographic is mostly vaccinated now, but for 15 months I was in that position. I’d treat COVID positive people w Both parents dead, aunts, cousins, siblings dead. They’d get it at funerals, baby showers, birthdays, holidays. My family wasn’t affected like that, mostly because we aren’t close & god the survivors guilt. Whole family lines have been wiped out."

https://old.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/q6apy9/whole_groups_dying/

"Covid is so much worse than the public could imagine"

Sample post - "I work NICU and had been pretty insulated prior to Delta. Now it's not unusual to get a positive baby. Luckily, we haven't had any severe cases on our unit. The shitty part is when they finally get well enough to go home, but don't have a mom to go home to anymore."

https://old.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/q67fl7/covid_is_so_much_worse_than_the_public_could/

Yeah, I'm totally not understanding the nurses and physicians who don't get vaxxed, even at the cost of their jobs. Nurses are losing their license to practice. Is it really worth it? To me it's like refusing to wear a mask in surgery - you take the chance of infecting your patient with germs they may die from.

But I know this thread is about nurses who are physically and emotionally exhausted by their work overload and the situation as a whole and especially by the non-stop suffering and death and grief that surrounds them.

There's a current ad on TV here showing images of a patient in ICU struggling to breathe and a nurse coming in to call away the nurse from that patient to another one due to staff shortage. The first patient is left alone, wheezing and straining to breathe. The voice says "we're not heroes, we're nurses". It goes on to say "and we need..." The bottom line is "get vaccinated".

I work ER and ICU. The burnout is real. If I could afford to change careers, I would. I think the large majority of my colleagues feel the same way.

And I have a very difficult time feeling sympathy for people who show up at my hospital with COVID. I just can't grasp the logic of why somebody refuses medical advice to get the vaccine but then suddenly trusts the medical system to take care of them when they become ill. Makes no fucking sense at all. They should just stay home and take some Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.