I am so thankful, proud of and worried for healthcare professionals who are continuing this fight. My personal dilemma is this: my husband and I have several young children. There is nowhere to send them away to (grandparents are not local, older and in poor health, absolutely cannot be saddled with the care of our rowdy bunch that we counted on raising ourselves all along; our siblings either work remotely and/or have their own families to care for).
My husband continues to work remotely and is making the bigger share of our household income, so he cannot be expected to just quit his job and watch the kids 24/7 while I distance myself from the family in case of exposure. I am needed to care for the kids while he works. I had been scheduling my shifts around his schedule.
If I bring home COVID-19, we would be sick and having to care for sick or at least infectious children who cannot be emergently passed off to family because they would infect them too!
If one of both of us required hospitalization, the kids would have to go wherever the authorities can place them because of the contagion factor. It would be traumatic for the kids.
My husband is at a high risk for complications due to preexisting comorbidities. He is our family's heart and soul.
We all know that the odds of exposure to COVID as hospital staff under current conditions are excellent, even if not directly caring for confirmed COVID patients.
I don't see a way out other than to throw in the towel occupationally and stay home as a family through this except for rare necessary outings.
Years in the ICU and with current employer, but like many, I counted on working hard and going home to care for family on days off, not on soldiering on through a pandemic and risking my husband and children's health.
I feel some guilt walking out on my coworkers and fear of repercussions getting hired down the line after leaving this job, but I feel that these kids' mother and father cannot be replaced, unlike as a staff RN.
The reality is some of us will have to work. Do what's best for you and now is the time before things get more hectic, rules and laws start changing that impacts a nurses future/current employment. All of us can't do the same thing, or else there would be no one to deliver care, hence we would all die. At the same time we need nurses to survive this situation. Hate to be so brutal about it, and I am not judging you at all,. I guess I am just looking further down the line and seeing how things could go. Best wishes to you.
The sad truth is to your employer, you're nothing but a warm body. They will replace you without remorse. They do not care about you or your family. They never have. If they cared, they'd be protecting you.
Never feel bad about choosing your family over your job. Ever. Do you think the hospital administrators are going give up their bonuses to pay for your medical care if you get sick. They didn't give up their bonuses to make sure their hospitals were prepared for this.
The sad truth is to your employer, you're nothing but a warm body. They will replace you without remorse. They do not care about you or your family. They never have. If they cared, they'd be protecting you.
Never feel bad about choosing your family over your job. Ever. Do you think the hospital administrators are going give up their bonuses to pay for your medical care if you get sick. They didn't give up their bonuses to make sure their hospitals were prepared for this.
Family first. Always.
Very well said. Especially about them not caring about you or your family and that we are just a warm body. So very sadly true.
I dont see you as a quitter. If I was married and had kids or had an elderly family member to take care of I would be doing the same thing. At least at my hospital they take this into consideration and won't put you in a position that could endanger you or your family.
I did the same, and the guilt is real. Everyone thanking the health care workers and I am a health care worker that quit....it's enough to give you guilt. But resist it.
My husband is immune-compromised. I worked on a psych unit, with patients that live communal style with very little PPE available. We were taking new admissions and, when I left a few weeks ago, still allowing visitors. I could see the writing on the wall that when this arrived on my unit, it would spread very quickly. We could have a new admit showing no symptoms and be living among everyone for two weeks and THEN show symptoms, and by then, the whole unit is exposed.
I'm a new nurse (9 months) so it's easier for me to switch specialities at this point. Psych is just a petri dish waiting to explode. I am still interviewing for jobs, though. With the right PPE, I'm OK with working. I've been honest about why I left my last job. I am just not able to apply for jobs within the same hospital system I just left, because I left quickly with no notice. My manager and I are still friends and she will gladly give me a good recommendation, but I definitely burned a bridge. I'm not taking anything in med surg, ICU, ER, or any area with high-risk exposure, etc....I'm looking at clinic or OR jobs that either have PPE as part of their daily duties (Dialysis) or don't have as much risk of spreading anything (OR, with the exception of intubating and extubating).
I understand your guilt, but I completely understand why you left. Many of us have done the exact same thing so there will be plenty of "quick quitters" in the job market soon. They will have to make exceptions for WHY we quit. Or not. But we will land on our feet. To me, the risk was too great where I was.
I have always told young nurses "Pick up and help when you can -- knowing that there will be some emergencies with which you won't be able to help." I'm old and have been the one to cover lots of emergencies in my career and said, "I got it" out loud and to myself said, "This one is mine." Sometimes, I have been the one who has taken risks.
But now I am old (over 60) and have diabetes and hypertension. I say, "This one is NOT mine." I need to step aside and let others take their turn at handling the emergency, high risk situation. No one person can expect to handle everything, always.
We should all be willing to take our turn and do our fair share when we can, but we should never expect any one of us to take all the turns. So I say, "Help however you can." If you can't work your regular job, maybe you can find another way to be helpful to society in some other way. Can you make masks? Or watch someone else's child? Or get groceries for an elderly neighbor? etc.
On 4/5/2020 at 3:40 AM, Florence NightinFAIL said:
If I had the resources, I would not feel an iota of guilt in quitting. Not an atom's weight.
They are already training your replacement.
I'm not here to tell anyone they should feel guilty about looking out for themselves or anything like that. We all have to weigh our own risks and values and I can't do that for anyone else.
But the above quote just isn't true.
Maybe your administrators would like to consider you a warm body, replaceable at a moments notice. They are wrong, and it is in situations like this that we see how wrong they are. If you have skills they need for this crisis, you will not be replaced. Your place of work will be inundated soon enough if it is not already, and will merely work short staffed despite efforts to find replacements. All over the country (the world, really), demand for skilled personnel will far exceed supply. There will be no one to replace you, and what work you would have otherwise contributed will simply not get done.
That doesnt mean its a shame or a moral failing to refuse to work at too high a risk or cost to oneself or ones family. But please don't cede the point of our disposibility to the bean counters. They should never again be allowed to treat healthcare as a matter of profit maximization and its practitioners as cogs or widgets. They were wrong. Don't believe them, don't internalize their bull****, and don't let them forget it.
OP, I would like to say that what you decided makes a lot of sense. You want to protect your family and loved ones first, which is totally reasonable and what matters the most at the end of the day. Hearing this, I wonder if you might think about relabeling yourself as a preserver or saver instead of a quitter. Who are you letting down? Not your family, that's for sure.
In a previous post, I detailed my reasons for leaving Acute Care, which had nothing to do with the COVID situation. As the days go by, I read about organizations temporarily licensing graduate nurses without the NCLEX, my new organization pleading with retirees to return to work, as well as offering $$$$/2 weeks or more for current nurses to to volunteer to go help any one of the sister facilities located in the red zone, and doctors and nurses dying by the hundreds all over the world.
My dependent mother is doing very well in assisted living (bless the staff for putting up with my harassment...but that’s my mom, ya know); my children are caring for my grandchildren (if for no other reason than to keep me quiet), and my retired-military-very-independent 80-y/o dad just WILL NOT STAY PUT no matter how much I threaten to call the cops. And my nursing agency recruiter! I swear, the louder I say “NO!”, the more she offers me if I’d return to Acute Care.
I don’t want to read about brand new grads/nurses falling ill before they even have a shot learning to be a nurse. I definitely don’t to hear about a retiree returning, only to falter. But I’ve served this career/job/whatever-you-want-to-call it (it definitely was NOT a calling for me) for 34 years come June, and although many still think I’m in my late 30s/early 40s, I have only 7 years to contribute in my new position and I can walk away with the age-required, full-benefit retirement .
I feel I’m a full member of the sandwich generation in every way possible. But I think I can best serve my family, community, and MYSELF- - -yes, after 34 years of ‘puckering up’ ((y’all know what I mean), I’ve earned the right to be selfish), if I stay local and help defend the homefront if it comes to that.
Good for you. Yes, Life and family should come before any job which is replaceable. In regards to jobs, yes its possible it may be hard to find a job once this pandemic is over. Nursing schools are giving students an early release. On top of that many retired nurses are coming out of retirement. So you will have an influx of job seekers once this pandemic is over, which means it will be hard to get a job. Also, if a future employer saw that you quit during a pandemic, that may look negatively to them because they may ask themselves, what will you do if this virus comes back next season? That's the tricky part, this virus will not completely go away, it will simply decrease than shoot back up next season. Hate to say it but we may all need to just figure out a way to work or change professions
Specializes in ICU/ER/Med-Surg/Case Management/Manageme.
Nothing wrong with making decisions that are in the best interest of you and your entire family. Someone else said something about how the working situation looks different to those with kids vs. those that have to kids or other family members to consider. So true.
Another thing...if you became sick with this virus and infected your kids and husband they might inadvertently infect someone else before realizing they, too, were infected (food delivery person, grocery person, etc.) and on and on it goes. Also, if any one or two of you ended up in the hospital you would only be putting additional strain on hospital resources. That's kind of a stretch, but it isn't entirely far-fetched. Whatever...your highest priority is yourself, your family. After that, you consider your profession, patients, etc. Take care! Be safe!!
Workitinurfava, BSN, RN
1,160 Posts
The reality is some of us will have to work. Do what's best for you and now is the time before things get more hectic, rules and laws start changing that impacts a nurses future/current employment. All of us can't do the same thing, or else there would be no one to deliver care, hence we would all die. At the same time we need nurses to survive this situation. Hate to be so brutal about it, and I am not judging you at all,. I guess I am just looking further down the line and seeing how things could go. Best wishes to you.