NJ's Current Nursing Shortage: Is It Vaccine Mandates Or Burnout?

All the medical staff shortages you've been hearing about throughout the country, don't think New Jersey's an exception. We're experiencing the same thing here in the Garden State.

Health care workers here in New Jersey are starting to quit left and right. The question is, are they leaving the field because of the imposed vaccination mandates or because of the prolonged stress and long hours brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic? As it turns out, it's actually a bit of both.

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Although over 80% of healthcare workers within the state's hospitals are vaccinated, there are still a select number of workers who aren't sold on getting the jab. If they choose not to, they're at risk of losing their positions. That isn't exactly the best scenario since, apparently, the state was already experiencing a shortage before the pandemic even started.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state, burnout has been a constant problem. Health care professionals are overworked and, in some cases, underpaid for what they do. So, it's no surprise nurses have been leaving the hospitals in droves in favor of higher-paying gigs elsewhere with less of a stress load.

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, you may have heard that the healthcare employment crisis is so bad that a New York hospital had to announce that it will no longer be delivering babies as a result of being so short-staffed. Don't kid yourself with a false sense of security. It's not crazy to think something like that would happen here in Jersey. It's not as nutty of a possibility as you might think.

Apparently, if the staffing problem persists, we'll most likely see hospitals and health care facilities turning to agencies to fill the employment voids.

If the boss mandated the vaccine, would South Jersey quit? Here's the answer:

When asked whether or not people from South Jersey would quit their jobs if forced to get the vaccine, most said they would.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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