We may need fewer nurses in the hospital...

[Chin up]

WCVB channel five Boston, is now airing, Healthcare Uncovered. A live panel show discussing healthcare and it's cost in Boston. The moderator, Timothy Johnson, MD. One of the panelist, Zane, the CEO of Tufts Medical Center whose 1100 RN's just voted 70%, to authorize a one day strike. This is what I just heard and this is verbatim.

"We may need fewer nurses in the hospital, but we will need more in the community, helping patients to stay healthy. so there maybe some modest job losses, I think there is a great opportunity to retrain caregivers in new professions."

"Doesn't the rank and file worry though, if I am dislocated as a healthcare worker. The job that may be available for me on the other end is nothing of the caliber of the job I trained for and gone to school for as a RN or whatever."

They avoid that question and go on about being unable to sustain the hospital budgets. Over half of budgets are employee salaries(nurses). We must address these salaries and benefits and look into job revocation. They go on to justify this thinking, due to small business unable to afford healthcare here in Mass and therefore leaving the state. There are great opportunities to shift our thinking from acute care to physician and patient remaining well. (paraphrase).

Helen Zane: what the trajectory we are on, the public will not tolerate. Better we get ahead of it. ( she is addressing nurses who want better nurse/ patient ratios). Fueling her position, against the nurses.

They go on and defend physicians who do needless test...talk about salaries and fraud in the same sentence. Implying, nurses must make sacrifices...my reading between the lines. Then go to prevention and teaching. Intervention is most important right now. (agree,but, where are nurses in this) Their focus, doctors, PA and NP.

You all need to watch this, there is so much more. Primary care doctors aren't paid enough, but no mention of professional nursing. Again, ANA where are you?? BSN's you are not being addressed at all. They are talking about eliminating your job. They are talking about retraining you and "retooling" your career. And you all are worried about the difficult patient? We need to get busy...are we even listening to what is happening right before our eyes? Are you all satisfied with your degrees when you have no say in policy? Do we even care?

The lie has been told so much, ever since I can remember 27 years ago. All we needed was BSN to get taken seriously...really?

[heron, ASN, RN]

Then there was the idiot who said that we could get rid of nurses and techs and use baby monitors to watch the patients.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x897574

The Big E :: Drazkowski: Lay off the nurses and health aides, we can use baby monitors (updated)

Have not yet found the original statement from the idiot.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

I don't understand all of your interjections, but in general, I must agree with the point that hospital budgets are unsustainable. I think their plan to downsize the nursing staff is probably inevitable across the board. It's unfortunate, but when the money isn't there, it isn't there. We need a single payer system in this country, but I suspect it will take a complete collapse of the present system before everyone realizes it.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Then there was the idiot who said that we could get rid of nurses and techs and use baby monitors to watch the patients.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x897574

The Big E :: Drazkowski: Lay off the nurses and health aides, we can use baby monitors (updated)

I tried to read that, but the way it is threaded is unintelligible. I think in the end, you are going to see one RN supervising many unlicensed people, who will earn much less.

[OCNRN63, RN]

The ANA has abandoned bedside nurses a long time ago. The only nursing organization that speaks with true authority for bedside nurses and gets things done is the CNA/NNOC, and they are making inroads across the country. ANA is an organization of a by-gone era.

[FancypantsRN]

scary stuff for us, especially those of us just starting out. do you really believe that the days of nursing (as we know it) are coming to a close? i'll admit, i am not that educated about the trends and what is down the pike (i am still fairly new to nursing).

i guess we just make money while we can... my husband wants me out of nursing anyway (to join him in his career). i don't even really understand what changes will happen in 2014 - i understand the healthcare changes, just not what it means for us. i hear too many different opinions on it. guess time will tell....

[Chin up]

I don't understand all of your interjections, but in general, I must agree with the point that hospital budgets are unsustainable. I think their plan to downsize the nursing staff is probably inevitable across the board. It's unfortunate, but when the money isn't there, it isn't there. We need a single payer system in this country, but I suspect it will take a complete collapse of the present system before everyone realizes it.

I was watching and typing as fast as I can. That was only a two minute bite, out of a sixty minute discussion. Food for thought. Do we need a single payer system and why... do we as nurses know policy....do we want others to make our decisions...this is addressing one state, the one with the Highest healthcare cost, per person. Does anyone know the discussion going on in theirs?

Thanks linear thinker for your response. Peace!

[tamadrummer]

I don't understand all of your interjections, but in general, I must agree with the point that hospital budgets are unsustainable. I think their plan to downsize the nursing staff is probably inevitable across the board. It's unfortunate, but when the money isn't there, it isn't there. We need a single payer system in this country, but I suspect it will take a complete collapse of the present system before everyone realizes it.

Sorry to say it but Mass is a single payer state. THAT is the reason for the collapse among many other reasons that should be obvious with the socialistic disaster that Mass has turned itself into.

[Chin up]

The ANA has abandoned bedside nurses a long time ago. The only nursing organization that speaks with true authority for bedside nurses and gets things done is the CNA/NNOC, and they are making inroads across the country. ANA is an organization of a by-gone era.

OCNRN63

The only reason I keep bringing it up, is because I hear it thrown around so often. You schooled me on the ANA on another thread. But, it needs to be repeated often. Thanks for your response! Peace!

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Sorry to say it but Mass is a single payer state. THAT is the reason for the collapse among many other reasons that should be obvious with the socialistic disaster that Mass has turned itself into.

The problem with Mass system is insufficient federal repayment, capitation, and trying to coordinate the 3rd party payers. We need a single FEDERAL payer system, ala France, i.e. REAL socialized medicine. I think fewer nurses are inevitable either way. The money simply isn't there.

[OCNRN63, RN]

OCNRN63

The only reason I keep bringing it up, is because I hear it thrown around so often. You schooled me on the ANA on another thread. But, it needs to be repeated often. Thanks for your response! Peace!

I'm really not trying to "school" anyone. Just taking every opportunity I can to remind fellow nurses that there is an alternative to the MIA ANA.

[tamadrummer]

You hit the nail on the head. THERE IS NO MONEY!!!! 45% of America works and pays taxes the rest milk the system. The top 2% pays 50% of the taxes and the bottom 40% of tax payers pay 2.9%, you cannot sustain any social safety net when the entire system is nothing but takers and and very few givers.

Single payer would be the death of the best health care system to ever be! The entire world comes here for there care, no one flys elsewhere because it is better, NO ONE! I don't want the greatest care on earth destroyed.