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From KQED.

California faces a shortfall of more than 40,000 full-time registered nurses, a gap that's expected to last until 2026, according to a new UCSF report.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced experienced nurses to quit the field, and they're calling it, they're just too exhausted to burn out,

and now hospitals are struggling to fill positions. We're going to talk about the shortage and

ways to mitigate it, and first we're joined now with Maria Nunez. She's a registered nurse who

works in the ICU at St. Francis Medical Center in Linwood in Los Angeles County.

Welcome, Maria. I'm glad to have you on this show. You've described this past year as a roller coaster.

Can you paint us a picture a little bit of those ups and downs that you've gone through?

Good morning and thank you for having me on your show.

Well, what nursing is facing right now is it's a roller coaster, most definitely, because

we're seeing the high influx of COVID patients, but very critical patients that we, you know, in other times we

haven't seen. Now we're facing young, you know, young patients where our nurses are not really,

...