Throughout the pandemic, many hospitals worldwide have been struggling with employee shortages. Will this have a long-term effect? According to the Center for Control Diseases (CDC), this healthcare worker deficiency occurs because of exposure, illness, or the need to take care of people at home. The healthcare labor market is expected to face shortages over the next five to ten years as the U.S. continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to Mercer’s “2021 External Healthcare Labor Market Analysis.” This study remarked that there would be a shortage of healthcare workers in the low end of the wage spectrum, ultimately limiting access to home care. 

Primary care is also expected to be provided by non-physicians because of the decline in workers due to the number of people retiring. There are projected shortages in nurses, especially in the Southern states, due to the demand for nurses set to grow by 5% in the coming years. 

This will affect mental health professionals because this analysis shows that there will be a 10% increase for these professions as well. How are we going to deal with this? The CDC is mandating vaccines for healthcare workers, and if people have COVID, they are out for five days and can only be back after they’ve gone 24 hours without a fever. 

Although this is an excellent way to prevent people from getting sick directly from patients, this wouldn’t prevent asymptomatic people from transmitting the disease, especially considering the fact that Legacy Emmanuel is letting their staff go to work COVID-positive. Although this could help patients who are really struggling get better and get out of hospitals sooner, the risk of disease spreading will get higher. Hopefully, this is a good solution, and this shortage will be fixable.