Sadness, burnout and stress: MT nurses denied pandemic hazard pay
Fear, stress, sadness and frustration are rampant among Montana's thousands of nurses and other front-line health care workers, some have told the Missoulian, as they work under duress in the midst of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
Almost all nurses in Montana been denied hazard pay in negotiations with their employers across the state. Turnover rates are higher than usual as some of these healthcare workers decide that even though they're passionate about caring for people in desperate times, the physical danger and mental anguish just isn't worth it anymore.
"It's feeling burnt out," explained Jeff Notar, an intensive care unit nurse at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula. "The things that go along with that are apathy and a lack of caring. That in and of itself is really hard to deal with. I'm an introspective person so I don't feel good that I feel that way. There's just a heightened level of stress with a virus you don't want to catch and you don't have a whole lot of treatments for."
Notar contracted the virus in December.
"There's no doubt in my mind it came from work, but I can't prove it," he said. "A lot of us had exposure to one patient in particular."
Read more: https://ravallirepublic.com/news/state-and-regional/article_1504c41c-150a-5391-94b1-a76bcadf9db4.html
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