Ohio nurse’s letter highlights desperate workplace conditions
November 6, 2023 – Today USA Today had a long piece about Ohio nurse Tristin Kate Smith, who wrote a powerful “Letter to my abuser” – describing poor staffing, security, and support at her hospital – a few months before she died by suicide in August 2023. She described a healthcare system that had “taken [her] heart and slowly crushed the goodness it had.” She said: “I cannot stay in this abusive relationship. Each day, you ask me to do more with less. You beat me to the point that my body and mind are black, bruised, and bleeding out. If I stay, I will lose my sanity – and possibly my life – forever.” Her father, Ron Smith, later sent her letter to their local newspaper, The Oakwood Register. The USA Today article described how the story has gone viral among health workers at a time when many struggle with similar conditions. That piece provides extensive commentary from nurses and mental health professionals about the severe effects on nurses and other health workers who are regularly asked to do too much with too little. It includes data from a recent survey of healthcare workers (mostly nurses) from Therapy Aid Coalition, a mental health nonprofit serving U.S. healthcare workers, and Don’t Clock Out, a nonprofit founded in 2022 in response to the suicide of a nurse friend. The survey found that 80% of respondents reported feeling burned out, 70% expressed distress about staffing ratios, and 50% felt their institutions had betrayed them. The USA Today article discusses steps that can be taken to improve these poor conditions, as well as resources available to help nurses who face them every day in the clinical setting. We thank journalist Sarah Al-Arshani and USA Today for this helpful piece.
In his letter to the Oakwood Register, Tristin’s father Ron Smith says:
We need to take action. Our nation’s healthcare system is broken, and it broke our girl. Her passion for nursing had turned into a nightmare. Tristin was in trouble. Nurses are in trouble. Female nurses commit suicide at more than twice the rate of females in the general population. We must do better. Call or email your Congress people. Tell them we can do better.
Take Action! We have 2 requests:
1. Petition! Please urge Congress to pass minimum nurse-to-patient ratios. Send a text to 50409 and type in SIGN PVCHLV as the message. To read the letter first, click here. Thank you.
2. Survey! Please take our survey to tell us how it feels to work where you do. We would be happy to forward your responses to any manager you designate–maintaining your confidentiality.
Also see the article on Tristin’s death: “A Profession of Pain,” by Samantha Wildow, from November 26, 2023 in the Dayton Daily News.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
I could have written this letter myself and I would bet that many other nurses could as well. I have seen health care deteriorate rapidly over the 44 years that I worked in a hospital. I retired a year ago after visiting a psychiatrist and being told that I needed to quit my job. I retired early because there was no more that my mind or my body could take. Going to work just made me feel bad about myself. I could never do enough, I could never give enough, I was never good enough. To anyone thinking about becoming a nurse I beg you not to do it. For your sake.
my sister is a retired nurse. she went through HELL being a nurse and still to this day battles severe depression because of it. I was so happy when she finally retired.
BTDT. Had seminars in the hospital where they blame you for the patient’s years of self-abuse. Said they abused themselves because you didn’t care about them. You would go the 12 hours from morning clock in until evening clock out without having time to stop to urinate. Kept count and had 12 of the fifteen minute coffee breaks in my last 10 years. Was told that I needed better time management. Retired on my 20th hiring anniversary and don’t even drive by that place now because of the memories.
I have been in healthcare now for 32 years, I worked my way through, and I am now a nurse practitioner. I have been in multiple areas of the hospital and even administration, but 3 weeks ago I gave a 2 week notice only to have my department cancel the rest of my shifts.
My beloved department, after 7 years of watching what I hoped would be a great and positive change soon became the chameleon. The department head was an abuser when I started and he went and got “counseling” all so he could continue to climb the ladder, at the top of the ladder he could no longer hide his true colors, but everyone is to scared of him to challenge his authority or speak up for what’s right. So, when I spoke up and defended my colleagues and promoted my colleauges, I became the outcast.
Power and greed rule the healthcare industry. CEO’s are making more and more each year, hospitals are pushing harder and harder to do more with less and blaming the staff.
Watching your friends and colleagues leave is terrible, the next man up, will they take care of the patient as well as the nurse(friend) that left.
I left, with the hopes that I can start my own practice and truly help people and not play to the corporate or insurance companies that pull all the strings.
as a nurse for the past 10 plus years, i had been abused by fellow nursing supervisors and upper management did nothing about it, even after doing so called in services about bullying and such, and have to sign it. so i left the job and suffered PTSD for about 3 years, i looked and found jobs that i was the only nurse there, till i found a great DON! she had helped me with the PTSD, she would not allow any kind of nonsense. to this day i still have her as my superior, since 2017 to the present, if one doesnt like the job the place, please move on , its not worth your life!
I retired from NICU nursing almost 3 years ago. The unions fought hard for us to bring in safe nurse to patient ratios. Big businesses, like kaiser, have worked hard to erode some of the safe guards caring people have put in place. A few years ago Kaiser petitioned the state government to allow a patient to stay in the ER for 72 hours rather than be automatically admitted to the hospital at 24 hours. Before that it was a compulsion to release patients before the person was able. A colleague came to work one morning and told how she found an elderly man who had just been released from the ER who was confused and could not find his car. In her estimation he was very vulnerable and in no state to be going home alone. Hospitals in the state were sued for turning out sick and debilitated homeless persons into the street. It took money and accountability to get them to stop this. I learned from Forbes magazine that the CEO of Kaiser made more than $1.5 M a month in 2017. There are good people in the trenches doing what they can and doing their best. I don’t see a change for the better in the future. When a friend of mine was sent home with doubke pneumonia (same: Kaiser) she lived alone. I and others stepped up for her. I shake my head in dismay at what I see. Shortages of staff. Short supplies. Broken equipment…
I’m just coming across this article on your site . It confirms what I feel as a staff RN on a busy heart unit . I have a wonderful supervisor but she is at the mercy of a big corporation and I’m afraid staffing will never change . I find myself confused about how much impact certain patients say I make in their care and the level of physical exhaustion, depression and listlessness I have when I have a day off from work . I’ve needed physical as well as mental therapy to survive . I love being a nurse but the staffing , lack of enough equipment and lies about staffing is killing my soul too. I’m praying to be able to overcome but I may need to leave the job I worked so hard to be able to do .