Hospital Profits Over Patient Safety: The reasons you should not be a nurse

[KalipsoRed21]

I saw this and it just spoke to me in a thousand ways. I want hospitals to be profitable enough to be stable, and to expand services, but the goals for profit are FAR beyond those meager goals. Your healthcare sucks because of capitalism. And the reason you shouldn’t be a nurse: capitalism = nurse abuse and poor patient outcomes. 

[Wuzzie]

3 hours ago, JBMmom said:

Don't people understand that even if they're not a nurse, at some point they're likely to be a patient!!

If only the public knew. 

[summertx]

I recently worked a shift where there were 15 COVID positive patients, coughing, sick.. everyone who had a task, social worker, admin, other nurses, aides, housekeeping, drs, all saw me as a warm body than can do it all. Stacked on the work, assessments, b/p's, admissions, more covid patients who were discovered positive, family members calling wanting a call back...the list goes on. Is there a cap on what a nurse can do? This can't go on because nurses can't tolerate this. Our license is at risk but  that somehow his hidden under all this mess. 

[KalipsoRed21, BSN, RN]

6 hours ago, JBMmom said:

I posted it on my facebook page and I was disappointed. I don't post very often and it's usually just pictures of my kids or something equally light. I've gotten 100+ "likes"/comments on fluff I've posted, but only 10 people "liked" the post and only three commented. Don't people understand that even if they're not a nurse, at some point they're likely to be a patient!! This has an effect on everyone. The presentation was very well done, I thought, I wish more people had taken the time to watch it. Oh well. 

Yeah, I posted it on my professional facebook (which is just 300-400 previous co-workers) and no response at all. When are others going to be as angry as I am?

[manager123]

Speaking as a manager and seeing this happen to family members applying for positions. The "no call back" from employers and disconnect between HR and managers for open positions is all too common. Many hospital employers have outsourced recruiting. Unfortunately, these recruiters are generally clueless about nurse staffing needs. Resumes and applications need to have certain words in them (never mentioned) to get through the first pass to avoid living in resume 'jail' prior to screening. If the manager is even forwarded a resume, it goes to 5-6 other managers and the competition ensues even within the same system. Alternatively a manager is sent a resume with zero job skills relevant to a specialty unit. Just because 'neuro' is included in a job set of skills from the applicant, it does not mean that a rehab or SNF RN is a great fit for a neuro trauma ICU. Not uncommon for applicants to be told 3-4 months after submission that the recruiter would like to speak with them. Chances are high that the applicant has found a job or is put off by the late response. Cue the random emails from that point on to the applicant that they would be a "great fit"for PBX operator or MRI technician! 

[Wuzzie]

@manager123 While I have absolutely seen the situation as you describe I can't help believing there is something much more nefarious going on than just system issues. Given the fact that hospitals are conveniently hiding behind Covid as an explanation for the only recently publicly revealed short staffing issue (that has actually been happening for at least the last 2 decades and we all know why) I absolutely see them posting jobs they have no intention to fill so they can wring their hands, point to them and say "we're trying to get you more nurses but nobody is applying".   Once more they are off the hook and the issue becomes our fault. I'm waving the BS flag.

10 hours ago, KalipsoRed21 said:

When are others going to be as angry as I am?

They are but they are also afraid of losing their jobs.

[bbyRN, BSN, RN]

Your claim that capitalism is at fault, as if central planning - socialism, etc - would solve anything is at best a mistake and naive.

If you think the national HC systems of the small countries in Europe can scale to US size, that's wrong, that's inaccurate. And no, one cannot aggregate all the European countries together to make the argument. For many real reasons. Not fantasy solutions. Btw, the European HC systems are mostly NOT the socialist systems that we are led to believe. Europe is NOT some utopia - again for many real reasons

Do healthcare system execs and dweeb managers suck. Absolutely. Politicians, ditto. And all the nice words coming out of some politicians and 'activists' mouths will just repave the road to hell. Who do you think is going to be in charge of the 'new' anticapitalist HC system and govt?

The US offers the most opportunity for all of us 'good' people to make the HC system, govt, etc better. We, each of us and in small organized groups, neighborhood by neighborhood, county by county, state by state, can make this work and make it work for us.

A central soln will lobotomize, castrate, and sterilize a real solution.

 

 

[Take No Chances]

Here is what I walked into at the beginning of my shift:

1 Unasyn hooked up, not infusing/ clamped off- patient allergic to penicillin. Dx rectal bleed- no hat for stool collection. Nauseated all day, Zofran not given.

2. Late on pain med by 42 minutes (patient counting). No IVF infusing per orders. No IV site. Needs restart.  S/P hip- No pillow between legs.  Old OR IVF in room hanging LR.

3. Call bell removed within patient reach. Pt asking for someone to be with him.

4. Pt D/C'd on previous shift still here. No CNA available. I took this pt out and did the discharge paper work.

5. Another patient- Family member states the nurses aid said the family is allowed to press the PCA Morphine button. This pt had no IVF infusing per orders. Found pt had IV Lasix- I wasnt told.

6. Other issues: **Taking MD calls. **Aids are missing. Pt's calling for aid work. Am happy to do that work but am behind. Have not seen all patients, since report at 1500. **Meal intakes are wrong for the 3 patients I saw. Found a vial of Ativan on a WOW in the hall ! ! ! **Another family states they have been asking for a Nicotine patch all day. **Continuously paged out of patient rooms. **Short an nurses aid. **Meds not scanning from pharmacy. **Cardizem po is ordered and family states patient is unable to take po. This was not followed up by previous nurse. **Leg dressings are off a patient and not redressed all day. **Hot ice machine has NO ICE in it/ water is warm. **Family called me in as patient is incontinent and not diapered. **Another patient was ordered routine bladder scans, not ever done. Voided 400cc and scanned for 800cc. Cathed patient. **Starlix not given for 7AM. Asked WHY? The nurse stated, "I don't know." Am still NOT FINISHED making first rounds. **Tele patients. (Big $$$ maker.)

REMEDY: I QUIT. Administration did nothing to remedy issues. BLames short staffing. A supervisor stated, "Do the best you can."  Is all about corporate money. I kept the information above to remind myself how bad it is and to never ever go back.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, bbyRN said:

Your claim that capitalism is at fault, as if central planning - socialism, etc - would solve anything is at best a mistake and naive.

If you think the national HC systems of the small countries in Europe can scale to US size, that's wrong, that's inaccurate. And no, one cannot aggregate all the European countries together to make the argument. For many real reasons. Not fantasy solutions. Btw, the European HC systems are mostly NOT the socialist systems that we are led to believe. Europe is NOT some utopia - again for many real reasons

Do healthcare system execs and dweeb managers suck. Absolutely. Politicians, ditto. And all the nice words coming out of some politicians and 'activists' mouths will just repave the road to hell. Who do you think is going to be in charge of the 'new' anticapitalist HC system and govt?

The US offers the most opportunity for all of us 'good' people to make the HC system, govt, etc better. We, each of us and in small organized groups, neighborhood by neighborhood, county by county, state by state, can make this work and make it work for us.

A central soln will lobotomize, castrate, and sterilize a real solution.

 

 

I disagree.  

There's zero evidence that the broken and failing American health system offers the most opportunity to make things better.  The real solution is a single payor model that protects the health consumer from capitalist interests. 

Throwing around words like "socialist" isn't helpful and suggests a specific political bias that is founded in rhetoric and emotion rather than facts and evidence, IMV.

I wonder if you believe that Medicare was designed with the capacity to scale up to cover most Americans health needs?

[maji2002]

So I see these complaints all valid and frequent, yet no one seems to know how to write their legislators, that's where all of this should be directed, over and over.  Also, healthcare is in shambles, has been for years, but as nurses, everytime we try and take a stand, we have been held hostage by empathy, and shamed into submission for the short term when we have strikes or protests.  We are told we are selfish and greedy and need to get back and do our jobs.  Every time, we submit.  With the legislators now only listening to their corporate donors, we likely have lost our voice there.  It will take a severe, serious action by nurses to be heard.  We need to think in the long term, stick to our guns, and not allow our empathy to be weaponized against us.  If we keep knuckling under, all that we say we stand for is a lie, safety and care declines, our workloads keep increasing and our numbers decline.  What's it going to take for nurses to wake up and do something???

[Take No Chances]

Socialistic medicine would be the greatest downfall of this country. Canadian associates always say to never wish it upon the USA, citing examples of why not. 

7 minutes ago, Take No Chances said:

Socialistic medicine would be the greatest downfall of this country. Canadian associates always say to never wish it upon the USA, citing examples of why not. 

That's an opinion...I wonder if you can support that opinion with facts or data.  I literally know people who now live in Canada so that they can benefit from the Canadian health system as they treat a disease that they couldn't afford to treat here. That's how anecdote works. Overall, Canadians are happier with their health system than Americans are with ours AND they have better outcomes. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690297/

Quote

Americans are more dissatisfied with their health care system than are citizens of other industrialized countries. Between 2004 and 2006, international public opinion surveys showed that only a minority of Spanish (28 percent), U.K. (26 percent), Canadian (21 percent), and U.S. (13 percent) residents were completely satisfied with their health care system. But of the four countries, Americans expressed the highest level of dissatisfaction: more than one-third (37 percent) believed the U.S. health care system needed to be rebuilt completely. This is nearly three times the proportion of Canadian (14 percent), Spanish (13 percent), and U.K. residents (13 percent) who had this negative view of their own country's health care system. (Harris Interactive Poll 2006c; HSPH/Fundacío Biblioteca Josep Laporte 2006; Schoen et al. 2004).

Americans are far less satisfied with the availability of affordable health care in their country than the Canadians and British are with theirs, but residents of the three countries agree in their assessment of their country's quality of medical care.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2019/us-health-care-spending-highest-among-developed-countries

Quote

The researchers determined that the higher overall health care spending in the U.S. was due mainly to higher prices—including higher drug prices, higher salaries for doctors and nurses, higher hospital administration costs and higher prices for many medical services.

The paper finds that the U.S. remains an outlier in terms of per capita health care spending, which was $9,892 in 2016. That amount was about 25 percent higher than second-place Switzerland’s $7,919. It was also 108 percent higher than Canada’s $4,753, and 145 percent higher than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) median of $4,033. And it was more than double the $4,559 the U.S. spent per capita on health care in 2000—the year whose data the researchers analyzed for a 2003 study.

Quote

Not only does the U.S outspend other OECD countries, on the whole it has less access to many health care resources. The researchers found that in 2015, the most recent year for which data were available in the U.S., there were only 7.9 practicing nurses and 2.6 practicing physicians per 1,000 population, compared to the OECD medians of 9.9 nurses and 3.2 physicians.

Similarly, the U.S. in 2015 had only 7.5 new medical school graduates per 100,000 population, compared to the OECD median of 12.1, and just 2.5 acute care hospital beds per 1,000 population compared to the OECD median of 3.4.

Although the U.S. ranked second in the numbers of MRI machines per capita and third in the numbers of CT scanners per capita—implying a relatively high use of these expensive resources—Japan ranked first in both categories, yet was among the lowest overall health care spenders in the OECD in 2016.

“It’s not that we’re getting more; it’s that we’re paying much more,” Anderson says.

https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/health-rankings

It's difficult to ignore the evidence. 

 

[SunDazed, BSN, RN]

On 1/24/2022 at 3:23 PM, Tweety said:

 

A friend of mine applied to be an RN where I work and she said they never responded to her application.  How can a short staffed hospital not want to hire a good qualified applicant.  Makes you wonder.....

 

The hospital corp I work for went from HR teams at each hospital to regional and international HR departments. regionally there are recruiters for each type of unit, for example med-surg, ICU, OB, etc. 

So when the ICU recruiter is known to be slow on looking at and forwarding applications to the managers who have posted jobs... well? Occasionally there can be an email to that recruiters supervisor... but otherwise it goes at whatever pace that one recruiter lives his/her life at. And it definitely doesn't match nursing!

The international part is some HR functions in the Philippines and payroll in Taiwan. When you try to get payroll mistakes addressed... Nightmare!