Anyone can get into Nursing.

lamazeteacher · Jul 19, 2008

Seems we have gotten a little off topic but......
If you really think that none of the candidates know much about nursing nor do they care, it is high time WE educate them. Healthcare has become a major issue in th USA. If WE nurses don't stand together and educate the candidates and the general public about the conditions we face daily, we will have no one to blame but ourselves for the further erosion of healthcare. Congress votes on bills based on what each member knows or has heard from their respective constituants. If We let Congress and the President know our concerns we can fulfill one of our tasks, that of patient education. EVERYONE has been or will be a patient. If education is the key to success, it time to turn the key!!! Not eveyone can be a nurse, but everyone should know & understand what we do.

Your conscienciousness is greatly appreciated! There are few vocations that provide employees the opportunity to experience the consumer's side of their efforts - maybe working in a grocery store is a similar type of thing.

I think the key to consumer awareness, is the fact that they grow older, have more medical issues later in life, and unless they are independantly wealthy, will suffer a decline in circumstances which lessens their buying power. At the age of 69, I am acutely aware of that!

Employers who provided healthcare benefits after retirement have stopped

doing that (after the erstwhile employee works over half their lives for them with the expectation of lifelong healthcare.....); othert employers charge an arm and a leg to support the demands of healthcare insurance companies' increasing greed.

Turning that key means that current American "baby boomers" (the largest group of retirees, and soon to be retirees ever) need to be accessed while they are in hospital, receiving home care nursing services. Short Nursing questionnaires could be used for patients and their families regarding what an ideal healthcare plan would be - for everyone, kept in the area of affordability.

One query might be: Who should make most of the money paid for the medical, nursing, PT & OT services I receive?

Then include the information in a pamphlet indicating that the amount of the "pie" received by insurance companies is far greater than 50%.

Another question might be: How many hours a week do you hope your provider works, in order to provide you the best of care?

Then include the diminished cognizance/competence that sleep deprivation causes.

Another one: Would you rather pay $600./month for your healthcare insurance, or $500./month for not only your coverage, but that of less fortunate others?

Then give the realistic stats for your community of employers who pass costs on to employees, and whose retirees receive nothing. The reason now for lack of coverage for retirees, is that employers fire them or make their working situation intolerable just before they retire. They also won't hire or retain people over 55, due to exorbitant charges healthcare insurers demands, with an enormous increase for those working after their 65th birthday, insisting that the primary coverage is that of the insurance company for all other employees, rather than Medicare.

A cover for the pamphlet that would get to everyone, might be the grief exhibited by a VA family when their chilkd was shot to death by a psychiatric patient who wasn't monitored sufficiently as an out patient, to ensure the adequate coverage of the psychotropic meds that would have prevented that tragedy (this happened several times recently, with full knowledge by the local police in each community where it happened, that a psych patient was paranoid and armed!).

"Universal" healthcare coverage (not socialistic, encompassing all people without limiting the amount of care/meds required) needs to be made under

standable in order to be accepted in our healthcare non-system,that favors the rich and ignores trhe lack of preventive care Lowering healthcare costs) for the middle and poor groups of people.

As community health educators, we should volunteer to talk to people at

churches, sport clubs, health fairs, employment fairs, etc. Councils of those of us with public speaking experience/proclivity, developers of pamphlets, educational websites need to form for the puropose of presenting ourselves as concerned, well educated professionals who care enough to inform our communitiesa of their healthcare liabilities.

In lieu of "benefits (short lived and inadequate), salaries would be raised, as employers wouldn't have to plan them top include rapidly increasing health insurance costs. We'd be paying ourselves by paying less for healthcare and employment opportunities would increase for Nurses interested in working to provide appropriate coverage for all. :lol2: