Coronavirus

Hospital Staff Overwhelmed By Rush Of COVID Patients

"I don't know how many will be able to make it." Wisconsin nurse describes effects of another pandemic surge.

Hospital Staff Overwhelmed By Rush Of COVID Patients
Taimy Alvarez / AP
SMS

Now to the pandemic and growing concern over the upswing in cases of the COVID Delta variant.

Unvaccinated people are inundating hospitals and overwhelming health care staff testing the capacity of ICU systems nationwide. 

"I know a lot of nurses on my unit, on other units, they're tired, they're overworked. And I don't know how many will be able to make it through another surge," said one nurse in Wisconsin.

"It is absolutely soul crushing. We suffered with this we had our own employees die of this," said a Missouri heath care worker.

"Definitely feel like I have some trauma from it because I get a lot of anger with people not wanting to get vaccinated and protect themselves because it's affecting us here in the hospital mentally," said a nurse in Kentucky.

And in Texas two Houston hospitals were so overwhelmed they had to build overflow tents outside. And while that may help with the capacity problem hospital officials say they don't have enough staff to help.