Re: Would you rather work for a state-run facility, or a private one?
In my 25 years of experience in public and private healthcare, specifically in psych, I've seen no difference in services between public/state and private providers -- in fact, in my experience, in my state, the state hospital in my area and the public mental health services provide much
better care/services than some of the private providers. If, God forbid, I had to be hospitalized for psych tomorrow, I would much rather go to the state hospital in my area than any of the community hospital units. And I worked as a psych surveyor for my state for several years, so I spent
lots of time in all these facilities, going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.
For the OP, in general, state/federal/county employment usually provides better pay and benefits than the same job with private/community providers.
However, there are lots of factors to consider beyond simply who owns and operates a facility. There are better and worse facilities of all kinds. And there are better and worse "fits" for any particular individual.
I'm
really tired, though, of the kneejerk "state and federal facilities are lousy and public employees are slackers" cliché. It simply isn't true. There is as much range and variety within the public sector as there is in the private sector. As an RN, I've worked as a federal employee, a state employee and a county employee at different times over the years, and my coworkers and bosses and the services we provided were no better and no worse than my coworkers and bosses and the services we provided in community/private facilities (
nonprofit, that is -- I'd go hungry before I'd work for a private-for-profit healthcare outfit).
I, personally, prefer to work for publicly-funded operations (federal/state/county) because I believe v. strongly in publicly-funded healthcare and services that are provided equally/fairly to all.
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