US nursing home workers face ‘catastrophic crisis’ of understaffing

Persistent problem has grave impacts on patient care, on residents' wellbeing, and is causing spiraling burnout for staff

For Linda Long, who has worked in nursing homes since 1997, working at the same facility outside of Tacoma, Washington, since 2003, understaffing has always been a problem.

It only got worse during the Covid-19 pandemic where she said coworkers were turning over due to the short staffing, constant Covid outbreaks, and the immense workloads that staff were left with to fill in the void.