Short-staffed hospitals battling COVID surge after opting not to staff up

Hundreds of financially struggling hospitals, frugal about staffing prior to the pandemic, furloughed, laid off or reduced pay for health care workers this year.

Florida's latest COVID-19 wave is making Bob Gortney, an intensive care nurse in Fort Myers, think twice about his two decades in medicine. Gortney, who works at Gulf Coast Medical Center, recently came back from vacation and found the hospital full of COVID patients. "I never left the COVID battle from last year," Gortney told ABC News Fort Myers affiliate WZVN-TV. "We went from having three or four COVID patients that weren't really sick to now probably 20 to 30 patients [who are] actually on a ventilator that are very, very sick and unvaccinated." COVID-19 is surging throughout the United States, with daily case averages reaching more than 110,000, up 25.5% from last week. Hospitalizations, which tend to follow rising cases, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates, are now at their highest point in six months, with more more than 75,000 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized, according to updated data from the Department of Health and Human Services. "It's disheartening," Gortney said. "I know some nurses have walked away from it. Some have just picked up and said, 'I can't do this no more.'"