Perhaps unlike Germany, in the US, people in those positions will not be able to come close to earning what they earn if they leave. Probably only half at best. A medical cert doesn't translate to much else besides the cert.
So like you mentioned, it's very difficult and grueling work, and people (in the US at least) get trapped because of the money. Passionless souls doing something they hate because they'll lose their upscale home and Mercedes if they quit.
I doubt that they hate what they do, it's just the shitty working conditions that render you unempathic and cynical.
Most of them care very much about what they do, and give everything they can for the patients. Otherwise they would have quit a long time ago. (I've had to do a 3-month nursing internship as part of my medical studies, it's mandatory in Germany)
Better staffing makes a day and night difference. I've experienced it first-hand as a doctor. The more overworked you are, the more cynical and unempathic you get.
After a weekend or some time off, it's already much better
In other countries with better staffing (Switzerland or Austria), it's a also very noticeable how much better the mood and morale is of the staff.
Nurses in Germany could never afford a Mercedes or an upscale home, but they would also probably make less, switching jobs. It's not that they don't love their job, they just can't take it anymore. You also rarely see old nurses for that reason.
Well then, I am glad Germany figured out better pricing for healthcare. If the pay is middling and the work hard, you end up with mostly committed workers, because others don't enter the field with dollar signs in their eyes.
I hope you see that my point isn't that nursing is easy, my point is that (in the US) the pay is very high and the barrier to entry is moderate. So it becomes a magnet for people who just want to make money. This becomes even more true for med tech jobs, where you can blast through a cert in a year, and land a $30/hr job pretty quickly. That's about 50% more money than people typically in that education class earn.