Oregon hospital workers break plates to relieve stress

When the healthcare workers at Salem Hospital are feeling stressed, the hospital’s wellness department usually recommends yoga or deep breathing. But a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a new wave of hospitalizations caused by people refusing to use the free available vaccine underway, healthcare workers are more than stressed. They’re wiped out, screamed and exhausted – and yoga and deep breaths don’t cut them anymore.

To give employees an outlet for their frustrations, Salem Hospital has set up a “rage room” where workers can express their anger by throwing plates against a wall.

Salem hospital nurse Lisa told AP News that she and her colleagues are hopeful this Delta wave won’t hit, but it does. “And it’s harder and worse, a lot worse than before,” she said. At present, they have 15 patients on ventilators and people who have died in intensive care.

She said she made extensive use of the plate crushing booth.

“We put on safety glasses, and we took plates and we smashed them. And I kept coming back. I kept coming back, and they told me I had enough laps. ”

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That’s right. Our healthcare workers resort to broken plates in a rage room because people’s refusal to get vaccinated makes them work hell. Throwing a plate against a wall is a much better option than throwing a bedpan at a patient, and controlled acts of destruction can prevent a nervous doctor or nurse from venting anger and exhaustion in an unhealthy way. . But seriously? Is that what we got to?

Come together, America. We are in a frightening global pandemic and we have a readily available vaccine that is very effective in keeping people out of the hospital. It really is not complicated.

This new wave of hospitalizations is happening even in Oregon, which has done relatively well with the pandemic so far. Implementing some of the country’s toughest mitigation measures has resulted in some of the lowest COVID rates in the country, and vaccination rates there are high overall. But these high rates are skewed a bit by some counties. Some counties in Oregon are still barely 50% vaccinated, and combined with low levels of immunity against previous COVID infections (the ironic downside to having handled the pandemic well so far), the surge in Delta fills the hospitals. Given that Oregon and Washington are tied for the lowest per capita hospital beds in the United States, there isn’t a ton of wiggle room for a wave of hospitalizations.

Things are even worse for healthcare workers in states with lower vaccination rates. Hospitals are full and filling with younger and healthier patients than in previous waves. As Charles Fox, MD, chief medical officer of the Ochsner / LSU health system in northern Louisiana, puts it: “The new risk factor is, ‘I’m not vaccinated.’

Remember when we all rallied around our health heroes when we didn’t know how to help them? Now we know how to help them.

Staying unvaccinated can be a ‘personal choice’, but it is a choice that affects everyone around you. You are more likely to contract COVID, which means you are more likely to spread it and keep the pandemic raging. If you contract COVID, you are more likely to be hospitalized, which puts a strain on hospitals and healthcare workers. And when hospitals fill up with COVID patients, it prevents people with other urgent medical needs from getting help, so your choice affects them too.

We’ve got full hospitals and health heroes throwing plates at the walls, guys. Give them a break and get vaccinated.