Health care's "bridge" is falling down

oramar · Jul 8, 2002

Sigh, this author has a bunch of letters behind her name. I sincerly doubt she is doing bedside care. I bet no one ever left her on the midnight shift with 12 sick newborns in a level II NICU like one of our poster describes. She just told me to shut up and stop telling the truth and go about encouraging everybody to be a nurse because she has it nice and wants to keep it that way. %@#$!%@#$

fedupnurse · Jul 8, 2002

Like I have said frequently on this BB before. Enough with the research into the "shortage". Any bedside nurse has known the problems for many years now and has offered the solutions. It is time for those making the budgets to put their money where their mouths are (rather than in their pockets) and make the necessary changes in work environment, pay scales and retirement benefits so that we can keep the experienced nurses and attract new blood into this profession. The answers are at their fingertips and they choose to ignore us.

live4today, RN · Jul 8, 2002

fedupnurse...I agree! If they would just stop with the madness of the research into a problem that we...as nurses...have already told them how to resolve...imagine how much moo-lah could be saved and applied to retaining nurses, hiring on seasoned nurses, and orienting the new grads with thankfulness for our services by showing they appreciate us. I do believe that sometimes TOO MUCH EDUCATION makes one MORE STUPID...NOT SMARTER! :rotfl:

LasVegasRN · Jul 8, 2002

Now I know what they mean by "Alphabet Nurses".

fedupnurse · Jul 8, 2002

The suits where I work are masters of losing issues in committees and subcommittees. We have had the same issues for years. When you raise issues they answer with a question. What is most scary is that they try to make themselves look like the victims!!!!! Yeah, they are crying all the way to the stinking bank! How many hundreds of thousands, if not millions have been wasted on consultants over the past 5 years or so??? They need to make hospital and insurance company executives salaries and perks like stock options, retirement benes, dinners, etc., PUBLIC Knowledge! They should be printed in Newspapers and magazines every year. One magazine does the best hospital series every year. Let them do the 200 highest paid executives from healthcare. What an expose that would be. I often wonder if the suits are doctoring the books like some of these businesses like Enron, etc.? Wouldn't shock me in the least. Only difference is it would be the opposite, they'd be hiding profits instead of losses.

pacernurse · Jul 8, 2002

Bedside nurses have been trying to bridge-build and have beeen researching the nursing shortage and it's effect in hospitals since reengineering in the 1990's. It's time to actually apply the research to find some solutions and have the other bridge-builders build some bridges towards us before there are no nurses left to nurse.

-jt · Jul 9, 2002

I just read that editorial in the link & it has nothing to do with researching but God bless nurse researchers - I could never be one. I thank them for being there because without their work, we would just be written off as a bunch of whining, complaining women. We needed the research to support & prove to the powers-that-be what we already know to be true. Researchers have given us the tools that prove the public health is at risk when nurses are abused or MIA. Nobody is sitting around doing nothing with that research - its been in all the news & legislatures & the nursing profession is using it as evidence to twist arms to get this crisis fixed. The research studies are making it possible to get things changed for the better.

But thats not even what the editorial is about. Below is an excerpt. Sounds good to me:

"Nurses can be thought of as bridges, because we bridge the gap between wellness and illness and between illness and optimal health. We are teachers, bridging helplessness and empowerment. In every practice setting, nurses are the bridge between art and science, fear and hope, patient and physician, patient and pharmacist, or payer and caregiver. Nurses bridge problems and innovation, despair and creativity, every day.

If you accept that analogy, then the "bridges" of the United States are in danger. Indeed, one of you forwarded to me an essay written by a physician in which he refers to nurses as an "endangered species." In this essay, the author expresses his fear of a health care delivery system without nurses and concludes with an honest plea for governmental involvement in the complex resolution of the problem.

Perhaps you have seen a glimpse of the advertising portion of Johnson & Johnson's $20 million campaign to attract more people to nursing and address the acute nursing shortage (which is expected to triple during the next 20 years). Yet, in general, the public is unaware of the problems that plague the "bridges" upon whom they have come to depend.

Yes, there is a crisis in the "house of nursing." The American Nurses Association (ANA) is spearheading an initiative entitled "The Call to the Nursing Profession," which is intended to bring together the collective expertise and resources of the nursing community to defend itself against common threats. The threats to our community include unsafe and dissatisfying work environments, the value and image of nursing, declining quality of patient care, patient and nurse safety issues, declining enrollments in schools of nursing, and the looming nursing shortage........"

I think its great that the ANA has brought together 70 different RN specialty groups & nursing organizations to fight all that with one loud strong voice. But until we get the job done, I cant encourage my daughters or nephews to become bedside nurses & knowingly watch them walk into a career where they will be abused for a living.

oramar · Jul 9, 2002

I had no problem with the first 2/3 of the article. I guess I should of said that. It just freaked me out when I got to the bottom and found that she was trying to tell me what to say or not to say. Nothing makes me madder than people who try to keep me quite or dictate what I say.