'You cry on your way home': Nurses describe hospital conditions during latest COVID-19 surge
'You cry on your way home': Local nurses describe conditions in hospitals amid fourth COVID-19 surge
'You cry on your way home': Local nurses describe conditions in hospitals amid fourth COVID-19 surge
'You cry on your way home': Local nurses describe conditions in hospitals amid fourth COVID-19 surge
Louisiana currently has the highest rate of new COVID-19 infections per capita in the country.
Nearly 5,500 more cases were reported as of Thursday, and more than 2,300 people were hospitalized with coronavirus.
As cases continue to rise, health care workers spoke about the conditions inside of local hospitals. This comes as we are also experiencing a nationwide nurse shortage.
Health officials said currently there are at least 6,000 open nursing positions in Louisiana.
"We are stressed because we thought this was getting better. Now, we are working even harder than we did months ago," Ochsner Health registered nurse Wanda Rivers said.
Medical staff elsewhere in the region agreed.
"I have been a nurse for 30 years now. I have never seen anything quite like what we are dealing with right now," said Michele Accardo, a nurse practitioner at Lakeview Regional Medical Center on the Northshore.
Louisiana is now in its third straight day of record-breaking numbers with people admitted.
In one part of the state, hospitals were reporting their highest number of COVID-19 patients ever on Thursday.
"You leave and cry on the way home," Accardo said. "Many nights I have done that. People need to know that this is serious. You come into the hospital and people are sick in a way we have never seen before."
Rivers said leaders at her hospital had to add another COVID-19 unit to accommodate the overwhelming number of patients.
Many patients had to be turned away at other campuses in the state.
"We are finding that most of the patients that have been admitted have not been vaccinated," Rivers said.
The nationwide nurse shortage makes matters worse, she said.
"All of us have had to pick up extra shifts," Rivers said. "We have to work extra. We are tired."
With cases continuing to rise, medical staff said vaccination is the quickest way to seeing a brighter day in the health care field.
"I would not push the vaccine or mandate it on anyone," Accardo said. "But from my experience and what we are seeing every day, the vaccine is crucial to us getting past this."
Of the thousands of people now hospitalized with COVID-19, at least 90% are unvaccinated, health officials throughout the state said.
At least 2 million people have received at least one dose here in Louisiana. But health leaders said this is not enough in preventing more hospitalizations and deaths.
