Good article on nursing shortage

cactus wren · Feb 10, 2003

Makes the"welcome to Walmart" job look better and better....

MrsK1223 · Feb 10, 2003

Amen cactus!!!!! Iw ould have copy and pasted the article but it was pretty long. A must read though.

Sleepyeyes · Feb 10, 2003

What an excellent article! Well worth the time! thanks.

maizey · Feb 10, 2003

What an excellent article. It's what's happening out there and about time the public is made aware of the fact that in many instances they or their loved ones may not be safe in a hospital where one would expect to be very safe and well cared for.

Stargazer · Feb 10, 2003

So many things wrong in this article I can't even count them all.

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.

Is this even legal?

Amd what the HELL is wrong with the Florida Nurses' Association?

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.

Grrr....

k123456 · Feb 10, 2003

Message deleted. No response necessary.

Stargazer · Feb 10, 2003

No (though you're right), but I did notice 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."

and this:

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."

Because docs aren't responsible for, or capable of, following up on the tests that they order without a nurse as go-beween? :rolleyes:

and this:

"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.

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).

Like I said--so many things wrong here, it's hard to know where to start...

-jt · Feb 10, 2003

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.

P_RN, ADN, RN · Feb 10, 2003

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.

LaurieCRNP2002, MSN, RN, APRN · Feb 10, 2003

Maybe we should be xeroxing this article and sending it to our congressional reps and senators. Not to mention the major network news shows--48 Hours, Dateline, 20/20---I can't imagine that one, if not all, of them would hestitate to jump on this.

Laurie

Newly minted MSN

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 10, 2003

Originally posted by k123456
Did anyone else notice how the nurses names are right out there, but the lawyer is "hesitant" to disclose the physicians' names?

Ugh!!!!!

Yes, I did. I think some MDs made a few mistakes along the way too.