Danielle Henderson, a mother of five in north-west Arkansas, quit her job as a registered nurse as Covid-19 began spreading around the world in 2020. There weren’t enough gowns, masks and other equipment to protect her from infection, she says. “I was pregnant at the time and I just didn’t feel protected. And, mentally, I just think I was burnt out already, even before Covid.”
Henderson, who had been in her job for eight years, is one of hundreds of thousands of frontline nurses to have left a profession that was struggling to retain staff even before the pandemic struck.
In 2020 the World Health Organization estimated there was a global shortage of 5.9mn nurses — almost one-quarter of the current global workforce of almost 28mn. By far the biggest shortfalls were in low and middle-income nations in Africa, Latin America, south-east Asia and eastern Mediterranean regions.