The COVID-19 pandemic has been pronounced over by the World Health Organization (WHO) since May 11th, 2023. Now almost a year later it is time to take a deep dive into how day-to-day life in local hospitals has changed in the last five years, before, during and after the pandemic. The pandemic has had major lasting effects to the present day in 2024. For the years following there were vaccine and mask mandates, major political debates, and renovations of medical tools. Comparing post-COVID to pre-COVID practices would be like comparing night and day. While a majority of Americans have gotten used to life after COVID-19, the hospital industry is still recovering from the effects. 

In early March of 2020, Oregon was declared to be in a state of national emergency by Kate Brown, Oregon’s Governor at the time. This action allowed her to make decisions such as employing state personnel, equipment, and facilities for activities designated to prevent or alleviate the damage caused by the virus. The original rules for COVID-19 were if an individual who thinks or knows they had COVID-19 and had symptoms may return to work if ten days had passed since symptoms first appeared, and 24 hours without a fever without the use of fever-reducing medications, and other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving. After more studies were conducted and the world learned more about the virus, restrictions became looser. However, in hospitals there were still strict regulations in play.

Already faced with low pay the year before, many Healthcare workers had quit their jobs or were laid off during pandemic due to a lack of funding. Even more had left after the pandemic was over. Anne Beltman, an inpatient physical therapist at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center, has worked at Kaiser for over 30 years and she shares her experience of working through the pandemic and the aftermath. “During 2020 with the start of COVID, my schedule, unlike that of my outpatient colleagues, remained relatively unchanged. I was not required to work extra hours. Initially, the caseloads were lower than usual for therapy as many people did not come into the hospital unless they had COVID or another serious medical condition. Many of the elective or less urgent surgeries were postponed.” Especially at the start of the pandemic, many people were afraid to go to the hospital unless it was absolutely necessary. This led to outpatient healthcare workers having a massive switch in their work environment, as many of the patients that came in either had or suspected themselves of having COVID. 

When much was unknown about the pandemic, hospital staff was worried about going near it. What if they got the virus? What if they gave it to their family members or even to a patient they were working with? At first, they used a PAPR (Powered Air Purifying Respirator) mask to help reduce the risk of both receiving and spreading the virus. However, soon the lack of supplies started to decrease at an alarming rate, Kaiser alongside other hospitals, started to have only one or two staff assigned per shift to a patient in the COVID unit. While this helped with preserving supplies, it also was put in place to limit possible exposure from the patient to the staff. Many of the rooms were double booked and even now they have isolation rooms that can hold two patients if need be.

As more research was conducted and we became more aware about the virus, its effects, and how to treat it, vaccines started to come out in late 2020 and early 2021, and the fear of the virus started to die down. While vaccines to this day are still a sensitive subject, they helped slow down the spread of the virus and the world began to normalize slowly, but surely. Where there once was fear, humanity has adapted and pushed for normalization. “COVID-19 no longer meets the true definition of a “pandemic” though it continues to be a viable, ever-changing virus. Most of the patients I am seeing with COVID do not have the same severity or fragility of the earlier cases, but it can still be quite deadly and disabling for many people,” said Beltman. 

Even though the pandemic has been declared over and the world is starting to see life the way it was before the pandemic, COVID continues to thrive. In addition to the struggles surrounding it. Over 230,000 physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other clinicians had quit their jobs according to Definitive Healthcare. As well as roughly 117,000 physicians left their jobs within the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021. Shortly followed by about 53,000 nurse practitioners. In addition, roughly 13,898 Healthcare workers lost their jobs because of the vaccine mandate in April of 2021. This leads to a major issue: the healthcare industry is understaffed. “The combination of the pressure to work more quickly and do more, all with generally less support, for the many patients with higher and more complex needs makes it hard to go into work some days. Fortunately, when I am in a room, working with a patient or their families, I see the difference that I do make… Well, if I focus on that, it gets me through the day and keeps me going.” mentioned Beltman. 

While the healthcare industry is severely understaffed it is important to focus on the positive of things. The pandemic is over, and less people are dying because of it. A lot was learned about society and we as humanity came together in a time of need to do what needed to be done for the sake of everyone else. It is, however, still very important to keep in mind that just because we do not see the struggles of COVID-19 in everyday life anymore, that does not mean that there are no struggles. Healthcare workers deserve the world for everything they have done, the countless hours they have spent working, saving lives and seeing the trauma firsthand of COVID-19. Thank you to every single healthcare worker.