Among the responses, Hokkaido University Hospital said that when it sent nurses to care for COVID-19 patients, it needed to have other departments scale down their services. The University of Yamanashi Hospital said it had postponed scheduled surgeries.
Asked whether they have enough staff to treat novel coronavirus patients with severe symptoms, 53% said they faced a shortage of nurses while 44% said they lacked doctors.
Some 58% of the respondents said they did not intend to increase the number of beds made available for coronavirus patients, compared with 33% that said they were scheduled to or were considering increasing beds.
“Fatigue and stress on health care workers have started to exceed their limit,” Tokyo Medical and Dental University’s Medical Hospital wrote in its response. Another hospital said, “There are nurses who intend to quit because of anxiety and stress.”