PRESSURE ON HOSPITALS

Existing staff shortages across the country, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, have caused widespread burnout among health workers, even forcing some to walk off the job, The Washington Post quoted health specialists and hospital officials as saying earlier this week.

The coronavirus going for more than 18 months, with the resurgence of more severe mutations, has resulted in a "totally exhausted workforce," and "the mental toll of pandemic and burnout is real and it is pervasive across the country," Purvi Parikh, an immunologist with the national advocacy group Physicians for Patient Protection, told the newspaper.

For example, medical people literally walked off the job in Arkansas, while local officials sounded the alarm of a hospitalization crisis in the southern state as the number of COVID-19 patients rises, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant that is ripping through the state.

"The hospital is full. COVID-19 numbers increase every day. We are staffing inpatients in the ER and recovery room. No space for transfers. Running out of caregivers. Support health care workers. Mask up. Get vaxxed," twittered Cam Patterson, chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock last week.