Are you happy as a nurse in a universal health care country?

[lzadams]

Hello. I am a RN in California. I am so excited to find this forum. Please bear with my first and admittedly lengthy post, but I really need your opinions and perspectives. In a class debate about the US adopting a nationalized, government-based universal health care coverage, comments were made about the foreign nurses that come here to work. I need real information, not gossip or hearsay. Please tell me about your job satisfaction as a RN practicing in a country with nationalized/universal health care:

• What gives you satisfaction?
  

• What gives you dissatisfaction?
  

• Describe patients' attitudes about access to health care? Do you see people using this system to obtain a higher standard of health? Do you ever see this system abused and why?
  

• Some US nurses have a perception that universal health care in Canada, Europe, Australia, UK, etc leads to long waits for patients to ultimately receive services; i-e 12 months to get cataract surgery. What is the reality?
  

• Some US nurses get the impression that foreign nurses are dissatisfied with professional practice in their own countries, so they come here. In your opinion, is a motive to immigrate tied to the health care system RNs must practice under?
  

• How does the universal health care system you practice in encourage and motivate you toward excellence in practice?
  

I eagerly await your replies.

[elkpark]

Welcome to allnurses! :balloons:

There is a lot of discussion, information and opinions on this topic already posted by nurses from other countries (with various universal healthcare systems) in older threads dating from the debate leading up to the passage of the recent US healthcare law. You may want to look for some of those threads and review them while waiting for any responses you may get here.

For what it's worth (I realize you specified you don't want "gossip" or "hearsay"), I've known a few RNs here (in the US) from England and Scotland -- in each case, they had come here not to "escape" their home healthcare system but because they had married a US citizen. Also, in each case, they are v. unhappy with the US healthcare system and much prefer their "home" system.

Best wishes!

[lzadams]

I am up to page 20 of 288 pages of previous threads without finding this topic, but will keep sifting through as I can. TYVM for your response. I hope to gain a better/truer perspective via this forum.

[Fiona59]

I just did a search and they all popped up.

Yes, I'm content. Happy no.

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

I'm an Australian nurse working in the US for the past 3 years. I did not come here to escape my health system, I came here because the specialty I work in is very well known at the hospital I work at, and there's an opportunity to bring my expertise here and also to develop further skills.

Honestly I think we have the best system - yes there are waits for public health elective procedures but I don't think that's a huge problem. I do think it's a huge problem when people have to wait 4 months for an "elective" hip replacement while they're in pain. BUT - and this is a big but - you are entitled and encouraged to purchase additional private insurance which enables you to choose your doctor and skip the lines.

I used to use Medicare to go to the GP/PCP etc for antibiotics, and used my private insurance when I needed elective surgery. I think the mix of both is the best of both worlds.

[lzadams]

TYVM for your response. You validated some of the stories I heard. I have met and spoke with traveling nurses from Canada, UK, Australia and NZ and the typical reason for employment in the US was financial, not to escape a health care system. If the purchase of "additional private insurance" gives the benefit of choice and quicker access, what percentage of the Australian population can afford this? Once patients came to you in the hospital, were there more differences that emerged in the care of the persons "with" and "without" the additional coverage, such as the improved quality of life due to sooner resolution of pain, etc?

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

I don't know what percentage of people have private cover, you should look it up if you're interested. People who earn over $50kpa have to pay additional tax (1% more I think) if they do not have private insurance, so that's an incentive. As a nurse in a public hospital, you don't really know the insurance status of your patients so the care isn't any different. If you work in a private hospital, then obviously all the patients have private cover. I don't think private patients have better outcomes, or I certainly have never seen any data to that effect.

[Fiona59]

We've had people go overseas for surgery because they didn't want to wait their turn in Canada. Hips, knees, gastric bands and bypasses. Let's leave it at it gets broken overseas and then the taxpayer has to cover the costs to fix them.

Our hospital had a patient who went to Mexico for a by-pass because she wasn't considered a candidate here. Well, she had it done an had a beach holiday at the same time. Went sour on the flight home, which had to be diverted due to her illness. At last count, she'd cost the Cdn. system over $1million. The case was covered in the media. She know accepts it wasn't the best decision she ever made.

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

Yeah but I know of tons of people who went to Mexico for bariatric surgery because they didn't qualify under their US insurance... that really has nothing to do with universal health care.

Whether you go to Mexico because you don't want to wait for subsidized care, or because you don't medically qualify, or because your insurance is crap... EVERY system has pros and cons, and no system is perfect. Using isolated, anecdotal cases as support for either argument here is rather pointless.

What I think about is: what gives the most to the most people? And a strong healthcare system which is available to all - additionally supplemented by those who can afford more insurance - is very obviously the best way to go in a fair and equitable society.