The struggles of a new nurse

For a new nurse working in a major community hospital in Metropolitan Melbourne, it was a very rough start to what should’ve been an exciting new career.

She has requested for herself and for her place of work to remain anonymous for her own privacy and out of respect for the hospital.

Her anonymity has been granted and will remain this way through the story, she will be referred to as Ella.

“Being a new nurse working during COVID I was full of anxiety and uncertainty, I always felt burnt out,” she said.

“Staring off is nerve wracking as it is, you don’t know what to expect, my grad year was full on anxiety and the unknown”.

Earlier this year a study published by the University of British Columbia linked nurses’ mental health to the quality of care they were providing.

This raised the question of whether nurses were receiving enough support from their employers during the pandemic.

Ella said there was support but she would have liked and expected more support for university graduates.

“Everyone was stressed out, my colleagues all said the same thing. We were constantly short staffed, and we still are today.”

The counselling services available to nurses at the hospital were an anonymous counselling service via phone, the ability to speak directly to graduate nurse coordinators who oversee grad years and the educators on the ward.

In addition to the provided services, nurses also have the option to use a free confidential service offered in Victoria- The Nursing and Midwifery Health Program.

Glenn Taylor the CEO of NMHP says it is a place for any nurse or midwife or student to contact if they have any kind of matter that is impacting on their psychological health or wellbeing.

“Nurses were coming to us with the fear of the unknown-whether they were going to catch it and give it to their loved ones,” he said.

“They were frustrated because of the fear projection in society and the flak from the public.”

“But the biggest one [problem] was exhaustion and fatigue, they were finding it very hard to cope with double shifts and working on their days off.”

Despite the outside world returning to a ‘covid normal’ Ella says it’s mostly the same conditions inside the hospital as it was during peak covid.

“There is less staff working either because of influenza or covid plus the general high demand of nurses, there is not enough workforce and there’s an overwhelming number of patients,” she said.

“My educators were stressed as well and had their own struggles in terms of being short staffed and being pulled to work on the floor which left less support for us.

“They couldn’t do the job that they were hired to do because the hospital was in such desperate need of nurses that they got pulled to the ward.”

Luckily for Ella she was able to recognise that she needed help early on.

“My mental health was strained so I reached out to a private counselling service for nurses that the hospital provides, it allows you to talk to someone who isn’t a family member or friend and its completely anonymous, they are able to give their insight and professional opinion.”

Unsurprisingly both Ella and Glenn know nurses that have left the profession due to varying reasons.

“We had some nurses who decided it was in their best interests, in terms of health interests and those of their families to leave the profession”, said Glenn.

“For some of them it was a permanent move, for some it was a temporary move, so I expect that once things have settled down and they’ve had a break that they’ll come back.”

It was one of the Australian Labor’s Parties promises if elected to introduce the NMHP to be a nation-wide program.

“We were behind the proposal to the Australian Labor Party to help inform them of what it [NMHP] was about”, said Glenn.

It is only fair for the entire country of working nurses to have the same opportunities for support, hopefully this will be a step in the right direction for our working force.