Published
So many things wrong in this article I can't even count them all.
Is this even legal?Nurse staffing problems remained so unsafe that some nurses at the hospital a few years ago took the unusual step of creating forms to protest unsafe staffing levels. The forms, directed to nursing supervisors, were created because the nurse-patient ratios were endangering patients and the nurses were worried they would lose their licenses if serious mistakes occurred. The formal protests challenged certain assignments for various reasons, including that they "posed a potential threat to the health and safety of my patients." The administrators' response? "They threw them away, and they told us they would fire us if we filled out any more," the source says.
Amd what the HELL is wrong with the Florida Nurses' Association?
Grrr....Barbara Lumpkin, a spokeswoman for the Florida Nurses Association (FNA), even expresses surprise when told that hospitals had cut salaried nursing staff in the past decade, as several surveys and news accounts show. "There haven't been cutbacks," insists Lumpkin, the group's associate executive director. "It's just a perception," she asserts, because nurses are working harder to serve sicker patients. Admittedly, hospitals very recently slowed the cutbacks as the nursing shortage got out of hand, often turning to temporary "agency" nurses, who are usually unfamiliar with their assigned hospitals and can't respond quickly enough in emergencies, to fill available slots."Hospitals are working hard to create a good environment for nurses. It doesn't make any sense for hospitals not to make employees happy," claims Cathy Allman, the vice president of nursing for the Florida Hospital Association.
[The SEIU]has taken the leadership role in promoting legislation, modeled after a California law, that would set mandated limits on patient-nurse ratios. The FNA leadership-though not its rank and file-opposes it on the grounds that the mandated ratios would somehow discourage hospitals from assigning additional nurses.
No (though you're right), but I did notice this:
and this:A veteran malpractice attorney, [Lytal] points out that in many cases, "What we find is that nurses don't follow the doctors' orders. They're supposed to be their eyes and ears and keep the doctors informed."
Because docs aren't responsible for, or capable of, following up on the tests that they order without a nurse as go-beween?After the surgery, because the patient had arrhythmia, she was placed on a blood thinner and was supposed to have her blood levels monitored and the dosage adjusted. Unfortunately, because the nurses were too busy or inexperienced, they didn't notice that a key blood-test marker had gotten dangerously high and didn't call in those results to the doctor or lower the dosage of the drug."
and this:
Okay, first of all, "the girls"? And secondly, DUH. Of course vent patients should be in ICU (or a unit staffed and trained for vent patients)."The girls on that floor don't have the training or education of those of us who are experienced," the source says. As a result, the hospital administrators decided to keep future critically ill patients on ventilators in the ICU.
Like I said--so many things wrong here, it's hard to know where to start...
The article states that the hospital a pt was injured at is owned by HCA-The Healthcare Company, "a chain that paid $840 million in fraud-related fines and damages about two years ago". HCA is a criminal corporation.
It also happens to be owned by the father of the newly elected leader of the US Senate - Senator Frisk, a cardiologist who, with his wife owns something like $26 million in his father's criminal company stock. Senator Frisk used his influence to block the patient care act in Congress and lots of other good stuff that nurses were fighting for. Imagine what he will do to the federal bills for safe staffing, forced overtime bans, and anything else we need. Nurses better wake up & get more involved politically.
Well, It's an ARTICLE...good-I don't know....nursing shortage....I don't know that either. There is so much left out.
I am speechless. This looks like a paint ball contest. Splatter who you will but NEVER name the doctors. They never mentioned the poor cauda equina symptom man's chiropractor or how long he went before presenting at the ER. And I LOVE the "routine ortho surgery" and while we're at it, were those patients even placed on the appropriate units? And the "from now on vent patients will be in ICU"......OMG the writer knows just enough to be very dangerous.....name the nurses sure........after all they're JUST nurses. Grrrrr.
I'm fairly sure all the networks and cable channels already have their own articles in mind.
MrsK1223
186 Posts
This is a great article on the nursing shortage. A little lengthy but worth reading.
http://www.xso.com/coverstory.html