While many throughout the U.S. are coping with the fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, healthcare workers must expose themselves to the virus every day.
In fact, it’s been found that nurses are experiencing conditions that have been compared to a war zone, continuously witnessing the direct effects of the pandemic as it spreads throughout communities.
With a lagging vaccine rollout, hospitals have been overwhelmed and short-staffed as the coronavirus reaches new peaks in the country, suffocating resources and stretching the nurses thin.
According to Nurse.org, on average, no matter the facility’s specialty, full-time employees on hospital nursing units typically work either three 12-hour shifts weekly (the days may or may not be consecutive), or in five eight-hour shifts. Round-the-clock coverage means many nurses must work weekends and holidays, usually on a rotating basis. Nurses, now more than ever are working their hearts out.
For years, Meisha Amia,35, knew this struggle first hand.
In 2016, the then 31-year-old registered traveling nurse attended a health workers’ conference when she realized the nurses there had no identity outside of their jobs. That’s when she decided to branch out and help other exhausted nurses do the same along the way.
Chicks with Cheques, her business coaching organization has served more than 20,000 nurses looking to become “more than a nurse” and enter the entrepreneur field.
“I really wanted to help these women rediscover themselves outside of the walls of the hospital,” she said. “Many of them had unfulfilled dreams of being an entrepreneur, but thought it was too late for them because of their demanding jobs.”