Health care workers and mental health: NIOSH requests information

Thank you for the opportunity to comment! I'm a Safety and Emergency Management professional of almost 30 years in healthcare in central Florida. I have clinical and non-clinical friends and colleagues in every aspect of healthcare from clinical and non-clinical front line to C Suite and the sentiment is the same; too much work and not enough hands or time to get it all done. All one can do is meet the deadline(s) and reprioritize the pile to tackle the next priority that will change tomorrow. Healthcare is ever evolving and growing, but the people power can't evolve and grow at the same speed. It's too much on the entire body, from head to toe, to keep up the fast-paced run, not walk, that happens daily on the job. Our brains are wired to handle a lot but eventually the stress will break someone down and reduce them to feeling alone, isolated and helpless. I've watched it happen with colleagues and myself as well. Clinically, it's running from patient room to patient room because fast walking isn't good enough any longer since the patient/nurse ratios have become overwhelming. How does one possibly remember every single detail of every patient's needs under that kind of demand? It's not possible because a call light will go off and distraction happened that quickly. Techs would be helpful, but as a cost savings, those hands and hearts were taken away from clinical staff. Why make things harder when they're already hard? The bottom line is to save lives so killing staff defeats the whole thought process! Non-clinically, staying ahead of any inspection by a governing body is the focus. Making sure the boiler room floor is shiny and clean while the daily demands can get shuffled just as easily with lack of man power per shift. Deciding how many FTEs can be on payroll based on square footage of the building is a poor mathematical equation in my opinion. I've watch large additions to hospitals come out of the ground and open, but no extra staff was hired to handle to new building as a cost savings. The existing staff absorbed the tasks into their already overloaded work day and life went on with unhappy staff coming to work and quite frankly not doing a great job except at being miserable. Who can rest or take time off when they're picking up shifts to help their co-workers take care of patients, residents or buildings? The work and play balance are non-existent for all practical conversations. There's no coverage daily if someone calls out or there's an emergency so how can one possibly schedule a vacation? Few nurses will leave their coworkers in a hardship so they can go play. And few employees will turn their phone off because help after all is sometimes that phone call away. Healthcare is 24/7/365! Non-clinically, loops are seldom closed because there's meetings on top of meetings on top of meetings to get something, anything accomplished. WHY must it take so many 'non-committal' people to make a decision and stick to it? All this extra stress is not needed in one's daily life, but it happens every single day in healthcare and every single day many people are 'on the edge' with some going over without any explanation. All these situations lead to mental overload and stress that's not needed which causes so many domino effects to start happening. When a long-term very mild-mannered introvert employee becomes snappy or short tempered, it's time for intervention and a change in how business is being done. People are not programmed robots designed to work tireless and extended hours for eternity! We are designed to work and play to maintain a good balance in order to be happy in both job and personal life. Psychological healthy and rested staff bring happiness in the workplace which means a productive harmony will happen and stress will be lessened.