Many hospitals around the country are dealing with critical staffing shortages as the delta variant continues to spread.In response, several health systems in Louisiana are coming up with creative ways to alleviate some of the stress on frontline workers. Dr. David Houghton, vice chair of Ochsner Medical Center's department of neurology, located in Jefferson, Louisiana, told sister station WDSU that he has started training alongside nurses in non-COVID-19 intensive care units."My white coat came off. My scrubs went on, and I was David," Houghton said. "The hierarchies disappear."Houghton explained that he and other physicians, who work primarily in outpatient settings, were asked by hospital administrators to volunteer last week."The design of this project is to have physicians at the shoulder of the nurses on these non-COVID units, recognizing that the time may come soon where some of those nurses have to leave those units, go into the COVID units and now you have other providers that are better qualified and at least have more of an idea of how they can help," Houghton said.Louisiana Children's Medical Center in New Orleans is also making adjustments to deal with record COVID-19 hospitalizations and a national nursing shortage at the same time.Dr. Jeffrey Elder told WDSU that the health system has canceled or postponed many elective surgeries."That allows us to free up staff that maybe would be in the operating room or even in some of our clinics, which we바카라 게임 웹사이트�re now kind of shifting some of that to virtual care to bring additional people into the hospital to help with that staffing," Elder said.Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, testified before a city council committee Tuesday morning, saying that stress is at an all-time high for health care workers. Related video above: CDC warns the delta variant spreads as easily as the chickenpox "If you talk to hospital leadership, they are really scared. In a way that I don바카라 게임 웹사이트�t even remember them being scared last year," Avegno said. "It바카라 게임 웹사이트�s not a space problem. It바카라 게임 웹사이트�s a staffing problem."Right now, Louisiana has about 6,000 openings for nurses. Avegno said more people need to get vaccinated to give the state's hospitals a break, otherwise, patient care could suffer."Care will suffer, I think if we continue on this for a prolonged period," Avegno said. "We바카라 게임 웹사이트�ve got short-term tools with masks, and we바카라 게임 웹사이트�ve got long-term answers with vaccinations."