Why some nurses have quit during the coronavirus pandemic

Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding personal protective equipment, or PPEs, changed consistently. At Stanton’s hospital, nurses were told they would have limited access to an already low stockpile of PPEs and were being asked to reuse single-use masks multiple times, she said.

“Never in my time as a nurse have I seen this,” she said. “It was a position I could never have imagined I’d be in, even in my wildest dreams.”

Each time a safety regulation changed, she says she began to feel more like “a sheep sent to slaughter” than a front-line nurse, and started agonizing between her job and her family.

By late March, the risks weighed too heavy and Stanton submitted her resignation.