COVID: I'm ready to leave the hospital until the end of the pandemic guilt

[CardiTeleRN]

Hello!

I am considering leaving the hospital until the end of the pandemic. Not necessarily because of the ill patients. Mostly because of the politics. I understand that there is a shortage of staff for COVID units. My issue is, the hospital I work for is constantly creating new COVID units for patients that are asymptomatic. I've learned these hospitals are getting additional funding from the relief programs put in place by the government. The hospitals gain additional funding if the patients are placed on vents as well. I've noticed MDs and rr therapists are forcing us to place them on vents even if they do not meet the criteria.....

I am becoming extremely overwhelmed and am sick of what I am seeing. I hate how the system is taking advantage of these extremely difficult and emotional taxing times...I don't want to be a part of this anymore.

Am I wrong?

[guest584920]

1 minute ago, MunoRN said:

The government doesn't promote proactive intubation, the NIH treatment guidelines include that intubation should only be considered a salvage therapy since in mild to moderate cases intubation results in poorer outcomes.

I never said it they did -it was rhetorical. Keep up...

[guest584920]

2 minutes ago, Tweety said:

I didn't know the government is saying vents are best practice.  I work for a non-for-profit and it seems we try very hard to keep patients off the ventilator.  However, we haven't seen much of a surge in hospitalized patients yet and I work the floors and not the Covid ICU, but as I stated earlier out of 100 positive patients only 10 of them are on vents.

I do agree with the idea that pain control lead to over-prescription.  It started long before customer satisfaction when patients were winning lawsuits for inadequate pain control.  Now they are winning law suits for becoming addicts....and so it goes.

The government is not saying vents are best practice. It was rhetorical -if they did hospitals would be pressured to use them even if they knew better.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

2 minutes ago, DaveMHA-RN said:

The government is not saying vents are best practice. It was rhetorical -if they did hospitals would be pressured to use them even if they knew better.

Gotcha, you said "If the government says vents are best practice even if BiPAP works better physicians will feel pressured to use the vent."  

That big "if" evidently went over my head as being rhetorical, but I feel okay since I'm not the only one.

Might I suggest that you not use rhetoric and stick to something more true so as not to confuse us that can't "keep up".

But I suppose I can agree then because if the government says it's best practice and will reimburse for that rather than something not proven to be best practice, hospital protocols for treatment are going to be based about that.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

On 11/29/2020 at 2:37 PM, DaveMHA-RN said:

So you think CardiTeleRN and all the other RNs with similar stories are lying?

Not lying, per se, but perhaps don't see the big picture, other things going on that they're not aware of. Since not anyone of us are there to see specifics, hard to tell what is actually going on. Healthcare fraud exists, no one will deny that, but sometimes what looks like fraud to one person or group, turns out not to be, if all of the facts are known

[MunoRN, RN]

14 minutes ago, DaveMHA-RN said:

I never said it they did -it was rhetorical. Keep up...

"Rhetorical" would mean it was a statement intended to support an argument, but you're saying it wasn't intended to support the argument you were making?  Maybe you meant a different word.

[Jack Peace]

Let me ask you all this: for those of you who work in a hospital setting, are you testing for influenza as well as Covid with or without respiratory symptoms? 

[CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN]

23 hours ago, Jack Peace said:

To clarify, they aren't intubating the asymptomatic patients, correct? 

? This made me giggle, thank you. 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

15 hours ago, Jack Peace said:

Let me ask you all this: for those of you who work in a hospital setting, are you testing for influenza as well as Covid with or without respiratory symptoms? 

Yes.  For symptomatic persons we test for influenza as well as the common cold I believe, along with chest X-ray for pneumonia/CHF.  Since the rate of positivity is relatively low, you want to find out what's going on with your patient.  

Asymptomatic patients are tested for covid prior to admission, all patients are.

[guest584920]

16 hours ago, MunoRN said:

"Rhetorical" would mean it was a statement intended to support an argument, but you're saying it wasn't intended to support the argument you were making?  Maybe you meant a different word.

No, rhetorical as in "what if".

Here is what Merriam-Webster has to say: 

Rhetorical Language vs. Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical has several meanings which are close enough in meaning that they may easily cause confusion. It can refer to the subject of rhetoric ("the art of speaking or writing effectively") in a broad sense, and may also refer to that same subject in a somewhat deprecatory sense ("given to insincere or grandiloquent language"). But perhaps the most common use of rhetorical today is found in conjunction with question. A rhetorical question is not a question about the art of speaking effectively; it is a question that is asked for effect, rather than from a desire to know the answer. “Would it kill you to stop chewing your food with your mouth open?” is a rhetorical question.

[caliotter3]

On 11/29/2020 at 1:12 PM, Hoosier_RN said:

Macawake isn't in the US, so not part of US medical fraud. I will ask why would you report fraud to the persons who are part of the fraud chain that you're claiming? Why not go to your state board of health, and CMS? Just asking, as this is what makes the most sense to me

Just wanted to provide perspective to this question. Once reported something serious to management several years ago and then found out that nothing was done. Wondered about possible consequences, both to me and about the situation. For many years, until just reading the posts in this thread, I mistakenly assumed that “management “ had a duty to correct matters (of importance). These post statements bring to mind that mgmt might just feel it has a duty to turn a blind eye. Wonder how many others through the years have employed such a naive view until they have an ‘aha’ moment. (And I’m no Spring chicken, so I should have seen the entirety of this truism decades ago).

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

5 hours ago, caliotter3 said:

Just wanted to provide perspective to this question. Once reported something serious to management several years ago and then found out that nothing was done. Wondered about possible consequences, both to me and about the situation. For many years, until just reading the posts in this thread, I mistakenly assumed that “management “ had a duty to correct matters (of importance). These post statements bring to mind that mgmt might just feel it has a duty to turn a blind eye. Wonder how many others through the years have employed such a naive view until they have an ‘aha’ moment. (And I’m no Spring chicken, so I should have seen the entirety of this truism decades ago).

I learned the hard way after almost losing my license years ago. Some things like fraud need to go above in house mgmt. They are usually involved,  sometimes even driving the vehicle

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

On 11/28/2020 at 7:59 PM, CardiTeleRN said:

and that’s a part of the problem. I’ve experienced this on a personal level as well. I actually felt the need to bring it to the public’s attention since I have experienced it on a personal level and have wondered who is speaking for patients that are experiencing these circumstances. So sorry you don’t believe someone who is witnessing it first hand. Sorry for your ignorance because if it is you plainly turning a blind to the issues, you do not belong in health care. There needs to be a major reform.

Anonymous posts on a bulletin board for nurses does not equate to "bringing it to the public's attention". If you want to do that, you need to report to CMS, whistleblow and go to the media. And if you are not willing to do that, you are just as bad as the people you are claiming are doing these things. If you HAVE done that, you certainly are not sharing it here. Do not fool yourself into thinking what you are doing here equates somehow to righteous action. Your guilt should weigh more than your gripes. Take action if this is truly happening.

On 11/29/2020 at 3:42 PM, Jack Peace said:

Let me ask you all this: for those of you who work in a hospital setting, are you testing for influenza as well as Covid with or without respiratory symptoms? 

We test for influenza if there are symptoms. Influenza in general isn't known to be spread by asymptomatic people and therefore we do not test for it without cause. Influenza is almost nonexistant this year thus far, presumably due to masking and distancing.