COVID Fatigue

Change from “having to work”, to “choosing to work” …

COVID COVID COVID, seems to be all we talk about these days. Unfortunately, as healthcare workers, COVID and the repercussions of COVID restrictions hit different. Not only have we dealt with COVID in our personal lives, but we have dealt with it every day in our work lives. Trying to avoid bringing it home to our loved ones, whilst still trying to provide the best care to our patients and dealing with the normal stressors we have in our daily lives, was too much to handle for a lot of us.

The fatigue that has come from COVID times is something new that our healthcare system has not experienced before. Nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health… we are all burnt out. We are seeing all over the world, nurses and healthcare professionals striking and leaving their careers because they have had enough and are completely burnt out.

Have you noticed yourself getting irritable recently?

Feeling run down and drained?

Unable to give your all to your patients like you want to?

We get it. We have felt it.

Personally, I started agency nursing and joined HCA BECAUSE I was burnt out. I had lost the compassion I was so proud to have and express as a nurse to my patients. I was either numb to situations occurring around me and was not able to give my patients the care and love that I did before, or I was so highly emotional it affected my performance as a nurse. All because I had severe compassion fatigue. That is when I knew I needed to take a step back and do something different, to find my passion again, and the reason I decided to be a nurse in the first place. With agency life, I changed from “having to work” to “choosing to work.” The contracts and the placements I locked in, I chose, and I chose what worked for me because I decided it was time to prioritise myself and what I needed from life. I knew I chose nursing for a reason and that reason was to help people in times of need and be that support for them in their most vulnerable times, but unfortunately, sometimes you only have so much to give before you need to give back to yourself. Your career shouldn’t take you from you.

Compassion fatigue over COVID times has skyrocketed. Healthcare workers have been stretched, and their abilities tested. Maybe you need a complete change and move somewhere completely different, or perhaps you need to work less and earn more, so you can have more time off for family or friends.

Whichever choice you make, make it for YOU.

Ask yourself, what would make you love your career again?

Joining HCA was the best thing I ever did, both for myself and for my career. I got to find the reason and the passion again. Yes, COVID still exists, and fatigue still exists… at the end of the day, healthcare is one of the toughest jobs you can do, BUT it can be so rewarding.

Don’t lose YOUR reason, your WHY. Just take a different stance and find the love again.

Design your life today, with HCA.

Once you go purple, you never go back.

Apply here today!

Xana – Brand Ambassador