Stress adds up and takes its toll

A real story shared under a changed name – thank you to the storyteller.

Hannah, Registered Nurse – Emergency Department. 

Exposure to trauma every day

The stress we’re under, it kind of rolls over you day to day. 

When I first moved up here, I found a big change in the types of presentations from those I'd seen in earlier jobs. We deal with domestic and family violence, presentations relating to drug and alcohol use including assaults, serious drink driving accidents, and conflicts with weapons.

I often feel vulnerable and unsafe because of the overcrowding in the emergency room. Initially, exposure those these things is a massive shock. Somehow you become accustomed to it and keep going every day.

No time to debrief

It would be nice to debrief with somebody on more difficult days. But you have your late-early shift which means one shift seems to flow into the next. Then you see something even more horrific, and it starts to pile up. In the end for me, I would ‘make space’ by taking a sick day.

Stretched, stressed, short-staffed

Isolation, a transient workforce with high turnover and staff shortages are stressors that impacted my health and wellbeing. 

Moral distress – feeling you are not quite delivering

Feeling like you're not being able to care adequately for the patients can be a really big stress. Especially when you feel like you just don’t have the resources to do so. 

You learn how to do your nursing job and about the standard that you should provide. Then you have to compromise a bit and do what you can with what you have.  It makes it really hard if you feel like you haven't looked after someone because you haven't been able to get to them and there's nothing else that you can do.

It's like it doesn't matter about how much you've actually done in your shift. You always go home thinking about the things that you haven't done because it's out of your control. It’s not the difference that you've made, you're lying in bed at night, thinking: ‘Oh, I wish I did that’. It definitely can weigh on you.

Ask for help from someone who understands

If we’re struggling with our mental health and wellbeing due to what’s happening at work, it is important to access and utilise what’s available for us.

I have reached out on different occasions for support. I accessed the Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria (NMHPV) and went to EAP in the Northern Territory. 

I think just knowing that that person might have had similar experiences and can relate is so helpful to be able to connect with that person that you're speaking with.

Access peer support – it’s easy

I had a good experience with the NMHPV, a service for Victorian nurses and the model of care on which NMHPA is based on. It helped me, it was easy to access and is independent from my workplace so I felt able to open up. 

It was very easy to call up and make an appointment. If I couldn’t make the time due to work, my clinician followed up with me personally to make sure I was OK and to rebook. I felt like I was not just a number in the system. It made me feel very valued.