How do you really feel about 5-star rooms?

nurseygrrl, LPN · May 19, 2004

We're talking about healthcare here...which in my opinion, is a basic human right. I don't think that having money entitles one to better service when it comes to healthcare.

pickledpepperRN · May 19, 2004

A single standard of care I think we need. I a patient (more likely family) wants to pay for lobster instead of sole, fine. All need safe, therapeutic, effective, and compassionate care.

Debra Berger outlines the needs in the article.

Frills? OK! No problem.

http://cna.igc.org/calnurseoctnov03/thetime.html

Now is the time ... 'The nurses' proposal for Universal Healthcare & a single standard of care'

The following is the address by newly-elected CNA President Deborah Burger, RN to the September 16 rally in downtown Oakland, Ca. in connection with the CNA Centennial Celebration.

The California Nurses Association has advocated for a national healthcare system for over two decades. The staff nurse leadership made "single-payer" it's foremost political priority and in 1994 co-sponsored Proposition 186.

This year, CNA endorsed House Resolution 655, the Conyers Bill, which would establish a national healthcare system based upon a single standard of care.

We are here today in front of the Federal Building named after Ronald Dellums, a life-long champion for universal healthcare. We join this namesake as champions to say: now is the time for a national healthcare system.

We are champions for a system that meets the needs of our patients.

We are champions for replacing the corporate healthcare industry with a publicly-financed, democratically administered healthcare system.

Above all, we are champions for a single standard of care for all our patients.

We are champions because everyday RNs confront the neglect of the dysfunctional healthcare industry:

* Uninsured patients arriving in ERs with advanced illnesses and diseases that could have been treated easily and cost-effectively in clinics, if they had healthcare coverage;

* Families in distress over where their loved-one will go to recover because their health insurance has run out and they cannot afford to pay for hospital care;

* Hospitals that provide elaborately decorated rooms, concierge services, private nurses to VIPs, as their ERs overflow with uninsured working people who wait hours for care;

* HMO increase premiums that skyrocket as employers shift the cost of healthcare to employees.

In short, RNs are on the front-lines dealing with an industry that rations care based on the ability to pay. Many patients are uninsured, in fact 44.3 million Americans are without health insurance; other patients are underinsured, who do not have coverage for prescription drugs or routine exams or must pay a portion of in-patient hospital costs. The result is patients who receive different levels of care, different intensities of treatment, different access to pharmaceuticals, and the outright denial of treatment.

To the corporate CEO's, this rationing of care by the healthcare industry is business as usual. To RNs, these are our patients, who lose a limb because of untreated diabetes, who can't work because they can't afford a by-pass operation, a retiree who can't buy drugs to treat their high blood pressure.

So where does all the money go that patients pay as insurance premiums? As the New York Times reported this week, employees are paying 48 percent more for insurance than they did three years ago, and 2003 was a very good year for the managed care industry.

According to a recent study by the IHSP, the value of US HMO mergers and acquisitions was over $78 billion between 1993-2002; US hospitals profits between 1986-2000 were $194 billion; In 1993-2002, US hospitals mergers and acquisitions were worth $133 billion; pharmaceutical mergers were worth $457 billion; the top 20 pharmaceutical corporations combined profits, in the most recently reported year, were $60.7 billion.

As RNs, this outrageous diversion of healthcare dollars from patient care to corporate profiteering cannot continue. Our patients cannot afford the costs of the healthcare industry.

So we must act. We must advocate. We must demand: A Single Standard of Care.

As Registered Nurses, it is time for us to speak out for what we know is right for our patients. This is the RN vision for national healthcare, based upon A Single Standard of Care:

* Guaranteed benefits for the entire family

* No bills and no out-of-pocket expenses

* Access to quality healthcare regardless of employment status

* Choice of doctors, hospitals and other providers

A Single Standard of Care would cover equally for ever patient:

* Doctor visits, hospitalization and access to specialists

* Dental, vision and mental health care

* Prescription drugs and medical supplies

* Quality nursing home and long-term care

* Occupational health, preventive and rehabilitative services

Everyone, regardless of employment status or income would have healthcare coverage. When necessary they could simply walk into a medical office, hospital or clinic and receive care. Instead of the hundreds of different insurance plans existing, one publicly funded plan would:

* Guarantee one standard of care for everyone

* Cover all residents in the country

* Provide comprehensive services

* Ensure public control and accountability

The cost of providing universal comprehensive, "single-payer" healthcare would actually be much less than under the current system: no insurance companies to take a cut for profits and marketing and no reason for employers to cancel policies or make employees pay more, over-burdening the public health system that must provide care to the uninsured.

Employers would actually pay less into a publicly-funded system than to HMOs and insurance companies, whose premiums increase dramatically every year.

In a national system that provides care based on need, there would be limits on what drug companies can charge for pharmaceuticals, and limits on the ability of healthcare corporations to divert resources to expensive mergers and acquisitions.

For decades the major insurance companies, hospital corporations and HMOs have successfully derailed every attempt to create a fair and just healthcare system for our country.

Today we will hear from an Australian RN leader about the crucial role RNs play in defending public health services in New South Wales and how they must continually defend their national healthcare system from conservative attacks; from Maine, we learn that RNs are crucial to that state's effort to achieve universal healthcare, and from a Hawaiian staff nurse leader we will hear about how a private insurance based approach that relies on employer mandate cannot achieve a single standard of care.

As Registered Nurses on the frontline of healthcare delivery, we are all committed to winning A Single Standard of Care for All.

redwinggirlie · May 20, 2004

Why do we need to think we have to differentiate between rich and poor? It may bite me in the ... someday, but my patients are all the same to me. They need me, our techs and all of our expertise. In that regard, ALL of my patients are in five star rooms already. Good for them.

pickledpepperRN · May 20, 2004

ALL our patients are VIPs because they are cared for by US!

crankyasanoldma · May 22, 2004

How do the pts treat you and your fellow nurses in the 5 star unit?
Are there some type of personal service employees there, so that nurses aren't expected to step into that role?

The patients there are like all the others- some are demanding and some are pleasures.

All our 5 stars get is a fancy room. The housekeeper empties their trash, cleans and mops- just like she does in all the other rooms. My care is the same as is the staffing. Room service is standard in our hopsital, but the 5 stars have fancier trays. Any problems would be handled by out patient advocate- just like any other room.

I don't see any difference in care or service between rooms.

Tweety, BSN, RN · May 22, 2004

A coworker floated down to another unit, their they are sucking up the neurosurgeons giving their patients 4:1 nursing and private rooms. (We don't have 5 star rooms here.)

They told her "they are the bread and butter of this unit, please treat them with extra TLC". I'm sorry, I can't support that idea. I wonder how their other patients are treated?

SmilingBluEyes · May 22, 2004

I also don't agree that 'all' will benefit from the money garnered by '5 star rooms'. Do you think admin. will say...'hey!' we're doing so well here that we've decided to hire more nurses and raise their salaries!' I doubt it. It will line the pockets of the already wealthy.
Maybe I'm cynical, but that's just my humble opinion.

Exactly. So it's a good thing cause it generates more revenue? Hmmm good for whom exactly? Those in the corner offices, for sure!

I think people are deluding themselves---- if they think we all benefit from such pampering and the income garnered by it. I DOUBT hospitals with such revenues being generated this way share it fairly among staff who have to do the catering to such tastes.

Now, If all that is different is the "eye candy", then I am all for it, really. As long as staff ratio's do not differ or they are not compromising care of "common" people in other rooms or on other units. That never happens, right? :rotfl:

Scubadiver · Jun 3, 2004

since when did having a personal chef become a "need"? Is bringing in their poodle a need too? Some people have more money than others. More often than not this is a result of good luck or bad luck as to where and to whom they were born. The good news about this is that all humans have the same basic needs- read up on Maslows if you cant remember- and ascribing needs to one group of paitents and not to another based on economics is absurd.

I have to agree wholeheartedly. Yes, the rich have needs and wants too but living and working in an area where there are many rich people, I know from experience how they and their families treat the nursing staff. To many of them we are glorified handmaidens. I understand the hospital's need to stand out and be different and their wish to cater to this clientelle but perception is 'fact' to most people and what kind of perception will this '5 star' status imply to both those who use the service and those who can't afford it? Are ordinary folks going to believe that everyone is receiving the same level of care? I think not. Once again we divide the 'have's and the have nots'!

Di0202 · Jun 3, 2004

The optional services wouldn't be fair, because it's quite obvious that it'll take money to purchase them. Put an EO (Equal Opportunity) stamp on it, an income sliding scale, then we'll see how well it goes. Unless that happens, it'll never be fair.

If you have the money to pay for them it is fair--it's called a free market system. As another post pointed out some of us can afford to buy expensive things because we work hard to make the money to pay for it. This is not a socialist country and I hope it never turns into one. The rich pay more than their fair share to take care of people who can't or won't take care of themselves. Putting expensies on a sliding scale would be unfair to those people who made and saved money to be able to afford luxuries.

Farkinott, RN · Jun 3, 2004

If you are truly crook wouldn't surf 'n' turf be a helluva lot harder to throw up than reconstituted egg?!

mazz · Jun 3, 2004

Our hospital has new "5-star" rooms (you know with a chef, etc.) What is your reaction to this type of thing and "how does it make you feel"? I'd really like to know what other nurses think about it because my first reaction was not a positive one. THANKS!

I personally think it is disgusting. If someone wants a chef, go to a hotel or go home. It is hard enough convincing people that our hospital is not a hotel, and that I am not a maid or a waitress- I am a skilled, trained professional with a degree, and that sometimes I know more about your condition than your physician does. MY job is to look after your health and be your advocate, not your servant.

missmercy · Jun 3, 2004

The hospital should be focused on health care not becoming a resort. Sure, many of us have worked hard to earn a decent living for our families, but there are more appropriate arenas for the lavishness than in a hospital. I know it won't happen here -- we are a not for profit hospital and have soooo many indigent folks to care for -- we are cutting budgets left and right. Can't imagine what our CEO would say if we suggested a program like this!