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.
Does your hospital have an anonymous compliance hotline? Ours does. To bypass your management and officially report it to a compliance officer anonymously?
I agree. I could have said a lot but decided it wasn’t worth it. Discussed this with my coworkers and one of them, who is known to be very paranoid, believes this story stuff to be true. There’s gotta be some major organized fraud for this stuff to happen. Like mafia level
It could be just *extremely poor mismanagement due to a new major crisis. * But personally I have seen just insanity at times. And I’m going to talk about it, and I’m going to question it, and if there is a problem I’m going to try to fix it. Many people who comment negatively I wonder if they are currently in acute care and actually work on a covid unit. For those of you who are commenting and never stepped foot on a covid unit let me take you on a trip of this year so far.
In March for a period of 2 weeks we were forbidden to wear masks of any kind. You could not bring them from home and we were asked to report anyone trying to “get away with wearing a mask. “ We were told “it’s causing fear” “the CDC says masks do more damage” etc. then they started admitting covid positive patients on our floor of non covid patients. we were forbidden to wear masks and given covid patients while also caring for patients who were on neutropenic precautions. (Pregnant nurses who shouldn’t take patients on active chemo or be exposed to covid increased these odds) Then 2 weeks later they opened a covid unit. masks were mandatory but only hospital approved masks, which we were each only given one to wear indefinitely “until it broke it was visibility soiled” and told to put them in a paper bag. Now wearing masks and changing them frequently is the standard ....thank god.
in April we were much more likely to intubate patients early on and were told there was a better chance they would survive as “these patients crash and burn so fast” it was a preventative measure. Come to find out mortality rate is over 80% and morbidity is pretty much inevitable if intubated. Now we wait much longer to intubate.
Currently we are having larger cases than ever of covid positive people in our community. We are also experiencing a major staffing crisis, many ICU nurses are leaving the bedside or leaving for travel contracts or wherever they can get paid the most. However our admitting guidelines for covid seem to be the bare minimum and admitting patients who “might have trouble in the future” for observation which has us opening a second covid unit and now overflowing covid patients back onto non covid floors.
This has been a crazy year with crazy decisions and we have had to hold the hand of dying patients while their husbands, daughters and sons sob on zoom calls with us. We wonder if everything is being done properly. “Is this right to forbid family from saying a last goodbye?” “We wear PPE and are protected why can’t one family member do the same, we can educate them and make sure their PPE is on. “. “What if this was my husband? “....We went 6 months watching people die alone before hospital started allowing one visitor upon imminent death.
I don’t care if you believe me, this stuff is still happening everywhere. This is a tough year for nurses especially ICU nurses and covid nurses.
It’s traumatic and even if it’s just extremely poor mismanagement those for us that have been along for the ride this whole year sometimes just wonder what the $&@“ is going on.
As a covid ICU nurse I am far from surprised that someone wants to leave the hospital because of poor patient management and I’m far from surprised if guidelines are in favor of reimbursement money. If reimbursement is involved, It’s not “some big conspiracy” any more than patients whose length of stay can be directly proportional to the type of insurance they have. it’s also a lack of knowledge, planning, and poor guidance from CDC. If you don’t work on a covid unit maybe save your negative comments about how there is no way anything suspicious is happening to yourselves. Like I said it could just be extremely poor mismanagement but this stuff is happening.
I guess just because it sounds irrational to me doesnt mean it is happening....And I guess this is how conversations and changes are made to make improvements. You might want to find an avenue for these conversations in your hospital...My negative comments are not helpful so I apologize.I wish for changes to occur for the better in your hospital. Good luck. Stay safe everyone.
Report it but be prepared to have to leave this place if need be. They could run you off by unfair pt load, bullying etc. Just the reality. I have been in this situation before.
Specializes in ICU, Cath Lab/IR CCRN. SRNA Class 2026.
On 11/29/2020 at 4:42 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 do not test everyone that comes into the hospital for Covid. If a respiratory disease is suspected, then yes, they test for all upper respiratory disease. I work in procedures, everyone is Covid tested so that everyone, including other patients and staff members are protected from infectious patients. We perform very few elective procedures on positive patients... Otherwise, they have to wait out a quarantine time frame. Not everything is a conspiracy to make money despite what certain political leaning sources tell you.
I don’t buy this either. If your system was this corrupt you would have seen it a long time before on other issues. I work at multiple hospitals - on Covid units - and the only patients not needing oxygen are there for other issues that would have hospitalized them. Also, once you start something like Remdesivir you finish the course even if no longer needing oxygen.
All that being said, if you are here to “inform the public,” have I missed the part where you named the hospital? Because if this is happening it is not widespread and thus it does nothing if we don’t know where it is happening.
Specializes in ICU, Cath Lab/IR CCRN. SRNA Class 2026.
On 12/2/2020 at 10:13 AM, avado said:
Thank you for speaking up.
Distant family member who was on bi-pap doing well and got off but then had a set back. Second, daughter was told she was getting vented "to let her lungs rest" right then I knew it was a lie to the family. They should of been truthful that this is last effort and that the mortality is high.
Yes, I am a 20+ experienced nurse in ED/telemetry/ICU.
My humbled opinion.
It is very common for patients to be doing better and then all of the sudden they decompensate and need intubation. As an ICU nurse, doctors have used the term "let their lungs rest" for years for other conditions. Considering Covid causes severe ARDS, it is not strange for them to say that and is not necessarily a lie. It is not a conspiracy.
toomuchbaloney
16,095 Posts
I understood it as the lie was about the reason for the intubation. Resting lungs sounds nicer than respiratory failure.