WACO, TX — The nursing shortage continues to affect hospitals across the country from larger facilities to smaller rural ones. The strain is being felt in Central Texas, too.
COVID-19 cases are soaring and hospitals filling up, nurses and staff are almost on the brink.
Joyce Sarah McCabe, a nurse in Central Texas said each day is a battle.
"We see a lot of people die," McCabe said.
On Wednesday, instead of attending to patients, McCabe is at home sick with COVID-19. That's something no nurse wants to hear among the nationwide staffing shortage.
Resources and workers are spread thin trying to keep patients alive as more people check-in due to climbing cases. To McCabe, that positive test isn't just a metric.
"We have a patient Mac Robinson comes to mind, I remember being so sure that he was going to die, and boy we fought like tigers to keep him on this side of heaven," McCabe said.
For many nurses during this time, the days get longer. The nights get harder. The news gets a little more difficult to share.
"One of the things that we have witnessed through this is the human spirit that steps forward and says you will not win, you will not win," McCabe said. "And I would say in three months regardless of what comes, we will still have those people that stand up and say here I am to fight. "
