February 8, 2025

Cool Rabbits

Healthcare Enthusiast

Iowa healthcare workers fight burnout in latest COVID, omicron surge

Iowa healthcare workers fight burnout in latest COVID, omicron surge
Iowa healthcare workers fight burnout in latest COVID, omicron surge

Rachel Fratzke led her Mercy Iowa City nursing staff in a meditation session to start the work day on a recent morning. A nurse manager, she had the nurses do deep breathing exercises and think about when they first wanted to be a nurse, or how they felt about passing their certifying board exams.

The session was necessary, Fratzke said, to deal with the facts of COVID-19 and the rippling effects the coronavirus is sending through the nurses’ work day but also home life.

“Burnout is not going to go away any time soon. The pandemic is not going to go away any time soon,” Fratzke said.

That reality has made healthcare workers and administrators weary, thinking that the two years they’ve spent warning people about the highly contagious COVID-19 and its effect on hospital resources have yielded little to help relieve the pressure.