NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Faced with overwhelming hours, coronavirus fatigue and being stretched to do the jobs of two and three personnel on wards, nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers need help and additional personnel as the healthcare sector has “fallen off a cliff”.
In an interview with Eyewitness News, Williams said nurses continue to show up to serve the Bahamian people, but many are at their limit, both physically and mentally.
She said counselors continue to come in to address the mental health of nurses, who have long past burnout.
“We’ve been at the edge of the cliff; it’s now fallen off,” she told Eyewitness News.
“And we are to the point where we are providing sessions for our nurses.
“Physiologically, it is playing a toll on you and on your mental status, which is very important.
“You can’t at the end of the day, if you can’t relate, you can’t function.”
She continued: “It’s really serious.”
There were 147 hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients on Tuesday.
The number, though high, does not reflect the hundreds of non-COVID patients receiving care, and scores more who need elective surgeries and have had to wait.
“We need those wards that we know are down,” Williams said.
“Get donations from the Chinese [embassy], from the American embassy to facilitate our wards and get those wards up and running; those that have no air condition, whole ward with a whole 20 patients, seniors, not up and running because of air condition. That’s crazy.
“That’s taking a lot away from nurses.
“We have to discuss how we are going to do this.
There have been nearly 18,000 positive cases since the onset of the pandemic.
Bed space for patients has been a challenge, though several renovated wards are expected to come on stream to offset some of the load.
Just shy of 3,000 cases remain active.
A total of 343 people have died from COVID to date, with 47 deaths under investigation.
The Bahamas remains in the worst surge of the pandemic to date.
The surge has been largely attributed to international travel, social activities and the presence of more aggressive, contagious COVID variants such as alpha and delta, though the latter has not been formally confirmed.
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