How does YOUR hospital waste its money?

zuzi · Feb 25, 2009

So if them are illegals and if the medical ethics tolerate this, why you are not send them back, instead to give them a heart transplant?

From medical ethics point of view who is more entitle to receive a heart transplant a ILLEGAL who worked all his life for 5 dollars per hour where any other "legals" refused to work and also he keept his family with him...OR a "legal" who stayed all them life without working or wishing to work, "flying" and dreams just because it's "his life style" and expecting also healthcare for free???????

I WILL PAY from my paycheck ALWAYS for working illegals because they deserve it, because they worked hard! The other ones "the dreaming souls of cities"...I will let them for you guys to deal with...are too legals for a foreign working Zuzi!

A new job for a high skill RN is to triage the illegals at the hospital door ...you are illegal then call officer border and up them in airplane and sent them back home...not heart for you here!

Where is the next legal dreaming soul....... please come in our hospital....... YOU will pay for them!

I am so sorry.... for me, ethics means somenthing else.... a real balance for all, legals and illegals.

How much from your hopital money was going to feed drug addicted "legal" ones admitted for "pain", without any sign symptoms of pain?

Oh my, I am so ****** off!

A mexican, an old one, he worked almost all his life for nothing spraying the fields with toxic subtances, he is NOW with lungs CA... YOU will not treat him, because is an ILLEGAL allien BUT you will treat an addicted that NEVER given back nothing to this society and probably never will give????

OMG, you need to think better before! Are soo poor people around WORKERS! Go and walk on mexican cities and you will see them, go in the front of big stores and they will work for you for 4-5$ per hour.....and they have family behind....

HE DESERVED A HEART, he worked for this country, he deserve a heart, even if he dosen't have insurance, a heart for his big latino heart, damn it!

Aneroo, LPN · Feb 25, 2009

You'd think that if someone could get an upper management kind of job, he/she ought to be a good problem-solver rather than the type to just hire someone else to figure it out. If only you could sneak a Demotivator poster into everyone's office:

I love that website!

I almost got in trouble once for putting this one on the ice machine in the staff lounge: http://www.despair.com/customercare.html

Just my one cent! (the economy is bad!)

:lol2:

By paying experienced nurses about the same as the new grads. The experienced nurses are insulted and the new grads think they're hot stuff. The end result is that the newbies leave because they never planned on staying long on that unit. I read somewhere that it costs thousands of dollars for the hospital to train each new nurse, so that money's lost.
At the same time, the experienced nurse gets fed up over the salary vs responsibility issues, so the unit loses that nurse too. Seems to me that if someone's been on the same unit for a few years, does Charge (for a pittance), precepts students and mentors orientees, the hospital should make it worth her while to stay.
By failing to retain nurses, hospitals ultimately waste millions each year.

I agree. A coastal NC hospital will give $15,000 sign on bonuses to new grads with their BSN for a two year contract. Every nurse I've known who has done that has left as soon as their two years was up. :bugeyes: BIGGEST waste of money.

We(as nurses on my unit) waste money by throwing out unused supplies from pts rooms when they transfer out. Perfectly good IV tubing, syringes, alcohol pads, diapers, the list goes on. ANYTHING left in a pts room is considered "dirty" EVEN IF IT IS IN THE PACKAGE!! Drives me nuts! It is just tossed in the trash- these are non chargable items mostly so we are eating the cost. It makes my blood boil every time I walk into the room and there are like 4 wash basins 3 graduadted cylinders and a pile of syringes and caps in the room beacuse I know they will all be thrown out----- so wasteful!!

If they won't change the rule, see if you can set up a box to put those items in. Instead of trashing them, encourage donation. I don't remember the organization, but groups that do medical missions to other countries would LOVE those supplies!

cardiacRN2006, ADN, RN · Feb 25, 2009

Sorry Zuzi, but it seems like you just don't understand.

I can't explain it to you anymore either. Fact it, illegals are breaking our healthcare system, whether you like it or not...

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Feb 25, 2009

I think we need to let the issue of health care for illegal aliens go and return to our previously scheduled topic of how our hospitals waste money... like watering the sidewalks, or throwing out perfectly good supplies. Thank you for your cooperation.

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Feb 25, 2009

I think maybe it's hard for those who aren't in a hard hit border state to understand the scope of the problem. I doubt I'd understand if I lived in, oh, say, Minnesota. I live in Arizona. I see the problem.

It seems every few days we read in the newspaper that another van of illegal aliens, fleeing the Mexican border, driving dangerously, has rolled over. It's nothing uncommon to hear that 20 or so of the passengers are now in our trauma center. They obviously don't pay their bills. It's a massive drain on the hospitals. Some hospitals have closed due to this.

Zuzi, working US citizens pay taxes and still cannot get health care or health insurance. They are working and paying taxes that fund the illegal aliens' care. There's nothing just in that. The answer isn't take care of everyone because we don't have the resources to do that.

mcvaragon · Feb 25, 2009

This is interesting....

Let's start off by saying that healthcare "is" actually a business. The days of hospitals being run by nuns or insurance companies paying whatever the hospital bills them are over.

Stupid JCAHO and the state. The hospital actually "pays" to be audited by JCAHO so that Medicare will then do business with them and pay them for the care delivered. The state comes in a makes rules b/c medical errors KILL.

Regarding having the nurse do nursing; what does that mean... it would help to have a definition. If nurses were educated related to the business side and understood how their personal and professional practice makes or breaks their bottom line..... would they perform differently? The only reason that nurses have been allowed to under-perform is the threat of "nurses are going to leave if this continues". I've heard that F O R E V E R!

So, when care is delayed, a patient could have been discharged hours ago, things aren't communicated effectively.... .that's money down the drain and your tech right along with it.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 25, 2009

aliens are not the point to focus now! i am sure that for many of people here, grand parents or grand grand parents was aliens, legal or illegal ones, at one point in them life! damn it, gurls, what is here with so "against aliens reaction"? you are nurses not immigration border officers and you need to take care of all, dosen't matter and if a alien need a transplant to be saved... ethical is to have it!
omg..let me in my hole to don't heard again these discriminatory nurses judgements!
the point now are leaders and leadership and units managerial teams and them decisions.... and fallowing the leaders, when the roof is on the fire...loooool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghg_rma7yh4

no one is saying "aliens" are the point. the point is "how does your hospital waste its money?" and many hospitals waste money by treating illegal aliens to health care that is wayyyyyy beyond basic. if an illegal alien has a broken bone, a cut that needs to be stitched up or some other emergency, by all means treat them, whether or not they can pay. but long term, chronic illnesses that are costly to treat perhaps ought to be financed by their country of origin. if we continue to hemorrhage money treating people who are here illegally and have no intention of even attempting to pay, we will not have the resources to treat those who are here legally -- even if they have the financial wherewithal to at least pay part of the cost.

i've seen illegal aliens given heart transplants and ventricular assist devices with no expectation that they would ever even begin to pay for that level of care -- a level that many of our own citizens and legal residents have no hope of ever seeing because they can't pay for it yet (unlike the illegal aliens i'm discussing) are expected to.

my husband's family isn't from the united states originally -- but they jumped through the necessary hoops to be here legally. as did my ancestors. i haven't seen anyone on this thread commenting "against the alien." illegal aliens are something else entirely. they're (well, not to put too fine a point on it) actually criminals.

ozoneranger · Feb 25, 2009

The last hospital I worked for instituted a policy that prohibited nurses from sending island dressings (or any other supplies) home with patients after surgery. It was emphasized that we not supply anything to patients that didn't have insurance, which is pretty foolish, as these are the very patients that can't afford the supplies to keep an incision clean.

The result was......drum roll....

The hospital didn't get reimbursed for the first visit...then the patient came back with an infection, and guess what?

The second visit was far more costly & they didn't get reimbursed for that one either.

Sheer genius!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 25, 2009

so if them are illegals and if the medical ethics tolerate this, why you are not send them back, instead to give them a heart transplant?
from medical ethics point of view who is more entitle to receive a heart transplant a illegal who worked all his life for 5 dollars per hour where any other "legals" refused to work and also he keept his family with him...or a "legal" who stayed all them life without working or wishing to work, "flying" and dreams just because it's "his life style" and expecting also healthcare for free???????
i will pay from my paycheck always for working illegals because they deserve it, because they worked hard! the other ones "the dreaming souls of cities"...i will let them for you guys to deal with...are too legals for a foreign working zuzi!
a new job for a high skill rn is to triage the illegals at the hospital door ...you are illegal then call officer border and up them in airplane and sent them back home...not heart for you here!
where is the next legal dreaming soul....... please come in our hospital....... you will pay for them!
i am so sorry.... for me, ethics means somenthing else.... a real balance for all, legals and illegals.
how much from your hopital money was going to feed drug addicted "legal" ones admitted for "pain", without any sign symptoms of pain?
oh my, i am so ****** off!
a mexican, an old one, he worked almost all his life for nothing spraying the fields with toxic subtances, he is now with lungs ca... you will not treat him, because is an illegal allien but you will treat an addicted that never given back nothing to this society and probably never will give????
omg, you need to think better before! are soo poor people around workers! go and walk on mexican cities and you will see them, go in the front of big stores and they will work for you for 4-5$ per hour.....and they have family behind....
he deserved a heart, he worked for this country, he deserve a heart, even if he dosen't have insurance, a heart for his big latino heart, damn it!

your post is almost totally incoherent, but i believe that one of your points is that the illegal aliens deserve extraordinary medical care because they've worked and legal residents have not. that's hogwash. no one is saying that drug addicts are more entitled than hard working people. although if the drug addict is here legally and the hard worker is not, then perhaps the hard worker should be getting his or her healthcare from the country they legally reside (or resided) in, just as the addict is getting his or her healthcare in the country of their legal residence. there are a lot of ways to waste money in healthcare, and no one argues that some illegal aliens are hard workers while some residents are not. but you have to draw the line somewhere, and legality of residence is a pretty clear-cut place to draw it.

and as far as being judgemental: as a tax payer, i have a right to an opinion about how my tax dollars are spent. that isn't being judgemental; that's being a good citizen.

zuzi · Feb 25, 2009

RV you have right.....you deserve your opinion, thanks for writing!

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Feb 25, 2009

Local Health system in my area did a big advertising campaign including TV news time to improve image as "your community hospital". Did they advertize on the largest TV station in Philadelphia which outdraws the others news teams 2:1 adn where other gospitals recently had campaigns??? Nope they opted to build relationship with the #3 news station...

They did advertise on buses in area where 70% admits come thru their ER so at least that message heavily seen by neighborhood folks...

js408 · Feb 25, 2009

There is no such thing as an illegal alien. Let me say it again very slowly. There, is, no, such, thing, as, an, ILLEGAL, ALIEN. If I jaywalk, that doesn't make me an illegal walker. If I get a speeding ticket, that doesn't make me an illegal driver. Let's face facts. People who are living in the country without proper documentation are not guilty of anything. In America, if you are guilty of something, it's because you've been charged with a crime and found guilty by a judge or jury. Even if someone is in the country without proper authorization, they are guilty of no crime until found guilty by a judge or jury. What we're talking about is a paperwork violation. The proper term for "illegal aliens" is an undocumented immigrant.
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Yep, they do. Every time they buy something, they pay sales tax. If they pay rent, then the landlord is paying income tax on that rent PLUS property tax. If they have a car, they're paying vehicle registration tax. If they buy gasoline, guess, what, they pay a gas tax. I could go on and on and on.
California and the other border states used to be called Mexico. It was Mexico until we invaded it and killed the inhabitants. Infact, the entire country used to be, for thousands of years, the sole property of native Americans. That makes us illegal aliens if there is such a thing. If you are a nurse then you ought to have gone to college and learned this stuff so it doesn't need repeating. But I digress, finders keepers!
Anyone who is sick or suffering has the right to medical care, no matter how much it costs. I don't care what the law says. Every other civilized country (even Cuba!) recognizes this right. In the United States, it used to be legal to own slaves, but those slaves still had the right to be free, even though the law didn't yet say so. People have rights that may or may not YET be recognized by law, but that right still exists. The right exists in every other civilized country and it's time the United States caught up.
Undocumented immigrants are not the cause of the economic collapse. There were undocumented immigrants in the country long before the economy went south. They're just the easiest scapegoat.
Undocumented immigrants are not the reason that your doctor/hospital/whatever is hemorrhaging money. If you want to know why your hospitals are loosing money while charging $80,000 to deliver a baby, why don't you ask the insurance companies or the drug companies. We have a terrible terrible for-profit system of health care. Health care should not be for-profit, period. If you want to keep it for-profit then you have to accept that your hospital, as a business, is subject to market forces and will hurt when the economy is hurting. If you think that hospitals shouldn't be subject to free market forces then you want universal health care like every other civilized country provides.
Every country has undocumented immigrants yet the United States' health care system ranks 37th overall. That's a lower ranking than Chile, Morocco, Costa Rica, Dominica, and even some countries I've never heard of. Somehow, 36 countries have figured out a way to deliver better health care than us and it isn't because they have no undocumented immigrants. Hmm!
Health care costs in the United States are rising at a rate of 7% per year. Is the rate of undocumented immigrants growing by 7% a year? I don't think it is. Infact I think the two have nothing to do with eachother.
According to the World Health Organization, the median country spent $2,800 per capita on health care in 2007. Those other countries almost all offer universal health care. The United States, in 2007, spent a mind-boggling $7,900 per capita, and we do not offer universal health care. There are 50 million Americans without access to health insurance and 18,000 Americans will die this year for no other reason than because they have no medical insurance. Is that the fault of undocumented immigrants? Somehow I think it's the fault of our insurance companies and our broken system of for-profit big-business medicine.

In conclusion, if you really want to fix what's wrong with health care, then it's time that the United States got with the program and adopted universal health care. Time spent argueing about undocumented immigrants is not only time wasted, it makes us all look very very stupid and unethical to boot. Nurses are supposed to be there to help people get better.