Illegal Alien- frustrated!

[SaderNurse05]

Please don't flame me. This is the only place I can comw to to vent and get some ideas on how to get myself back on track. I work with people who are immunosuppressed. I have a particular client who is receiving lots of money in health care and medication as well as assistance with rent and utilities. She is hispanic, provided a Socical Security number and a signed supporter statement from her husband. Now it turns out husband is undocumented and their income comes from him fixing cars off the books. They have not filed a tax return EVER. This family also receives almost $400.00 a month in food stamps plus a few hundred in WIC. My problem? It hacks me off that they are getting all these benefits and don't pay taxes. It makes me feel like a bad person but it is really hacking me off. Every time I turn around there is this client with their hand out. They have this letter written in Spanish that says "I so an so make such and such each month". This has been taken by not only our agency but others as well. We would not even think about taking such a document from a Caucasian or African American person. I certainly do not want someone to go without help but it aggravates me when I have to assist this person at the expense of the next one, who might be a citizen! I am sure other nurses deal with this. I am looking for a good way of thinking about this. Thanks!

[PANurseRN1]

As a nurse, I avoid looking at the face sheet at the beginning of a patient's chart (that tells about insurance into) and concentrate instead on the person in need before me.

As a private citizen, I grow increasingly frustrated, discouraged, and outraged at the way the healthcare system is being asked to do the impossible and may, at some point, collapse, in part, because of those who misuse or abuse it.

As an allnurses.com member, I grow weary of those who are not in the trenches dealing with this on an everyday basis criticizing the opinions or those who are. Behavior is fair game, but opinions and venting are not. If you disagree, state your own opinion and leave it at that. No need to go after anyone else.

Which is why many of us begged, even pleaded for a forum for experienced nurses to be able to vent and be safe from students and new grads hacking at us. There is no need for sermonizing, period. And a little "walk a mile in my shoes" would serve a lot of students and new grads well before being so quick to judge.

[rn/writer, RN]

wow!

wow!!

wow!!!!!!!!

i cannot believe that as nurses we need to discuss this as though it is our first concern! our first concern is treating the patient! the human patient.

ask yourself why you became a nurse in the first place. if i wanted to be a politician i would have majored in political science. while there may be immigration issues and even criminal usage of false documents, when that patient is sitting in front of you your first obligation is to care for their health. let the politicians battle out the immigration and health finance problems.

i cannot believe that someone mentioned that little girl who got the wrong blood type during her organ transplant! why do you think that americans are more deserving or superior to other nations????!!!!!????? we are not. god created us all equally. i wonder if those of you who think that foreigners are less deserving of those organs would think twice about accepting one of their organs if it were your child in need. hmmmm..... makes you think, doesn't it!

americans are fortunate enough to live in the best country and i thank god every day that i am able to provide for my family. while nursing is about addressing health, social and psychological concerns we need to do so with caring and compassionate attitudes.

if there wasn't a nursing shortage in this country, these types of attitudes from nurses wouldn't be tolerated.

as a 4th generation irish/italian american and registered nurse, i am ashamed to be associated with nurses or other health care professionals that lack the compassion that their careers should be centered around.

heads should be hung in shame!

do unto others ....... you know the rest..... :trout:

i think i speak for many of us when i say that providing good patient care is our first concern. but that doesn't mean i don't have other concerns as well.

this isn't an either/or proposition. i can be both a compassionate nurse and a frustrated private citizen at the same time.

no need to make the assumption that just because i would like to see our heathcare system survive that i can't see the patient in front of me as a person.

and no need to shame any of us because we voice our opinions. if we act out those opinions on the job, that's altogether different. but coming here to express frustration is perfectly appropriate and may help us keep a calmer demeanor in the workplace.

it isn't wrong to be frustrated with a problematic situation. if you are offended by the expression of this frustration, you should probably avoid this thread. please don't attack, belittle, or try to shame others for discussing their thoughts about problems for which there are no easy answers.

[smk1, LPN]

I know the cost of healthcare is going up because the hospitals are not getting reinbursed for care. I know raises are not what they should be because hospitals are not getting reimbursed for care. I know nurse patient ratios are less than optimal because hospitals are not getting reimbursed for care. I know ancillary services are being cut because hospitals are not getting reimbursed for care. Yes everyone is welcome here, BUT BECOME A LEGAL CITIZEN AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE.

I, too, am weary of students judging seasoned nurses. Are we better? In some ways, absolutely. Our knowledge base and experience far outweighs theirs.

Can we please not turn this into a student vs nurse thing. THere are other LICENSED NURSES on this same thread who are basically expressing the same opinion as the student that people are quoting. It isn't about the title, just because you aren't a nurse doesn't mean you don't work in capacity to see the same abuses, misuses of the system. Some people just don't view it the same way as others. Personally I think there needs to be reform as well, but I do think that a lot of the ire could be directed at other forms of welfare as well.

[SmilingBluEyes]

As a nurse, I avoid looking at the face sheet at the beginning of a patient's chart (that tells about insurance into) and concentrate instead on the person in need before me.

As a private citizen, I grow increasingly frustrated, discouraged, and outraged at the way the healthcare system is being asked to do the impossible and may, at some point, collapse, in part, because of those who misuse or abuse it.

As an allnurses.com member, I grow weary of those who are not in the trenches dealing with this on an everyday basis criticizing the opinions or those who are. Behavior is fair game, but opinions and venting are not. If you disagree, state your own opinion and leave it at that. No need to go after anyone else.

You stated it perfectly. I especially agree with the bold, underlined text. THANK YOU!

[Kelly_the_Great]

Nurses provided healthcare.

Healthcare is a limited resource.

Many people vie for this resource.

Who pays for the resource provided?

Who deserves the benefit of the resource?

How much and what quality of the resource does one particular group vs. another deserve?

These are all issues of distributive justice related healthcare as a resource. To minimize these questions/issues and say, "why is this our concern as nurses?" is to not CARE. For you see, if you do not "care" about these concerns and you do not ask these questions you won't have the resource to provide. Again, let me stress it's a LIMITED resource.

It continues to amaze me that as limited as healthcare is of a resource and as providers/facilitators of this resource, so many of us believe that it's distribution should'nt even be a concern to us.

[cardiacRN2006, ADN, RN]

do you think they timed their collapse so they could get a freebie from the american people?

maybe not this one, but so many, many people do in fact time such occasions so the they can get a freebie from the american people. wanna know how many people i've treated with rhabdo/dic this year because the were trying to cross our desert? want to know how many pregnant women have suffered and died in the desert trying to get citizen status for their babies?

i'm curious how many of your trauma centers in atlanta got closed down due to the illegal alien population sucking all the money out of it? any clinics shut down?? please tell me how this problem has affected you personally.

i'm new to nursing, but in no way new to the massive amounts of social problems that the illegal alien epidemic is causing. as much i as loathe ideallic students telling nurses that they are wrong, or uncompassionate (or whatever), i loathe people from middle america telling me how wrong i am when dealing with the illegal alien problem.

also, i hate to break it to many people, but a lot of the illegals aren't poor. i've seen people parking their huge trucks outside of the des office. i've seen many, many people taking out their food stamp card at the store, but then buy their alcohol with one of several hundred dollar bills. while we struggle to fill our potholes of our streets, deal with our out of control crime rate, and rescue another hospital or clinic from bankruptcy, some illegals are getting wic/food stamps and other american freebies for just that-free.

why, do you think that americans are more deserving or superior to other nations????!!!!!?????

yes! i do think that americans are more entitiled to american sevices that non-americans! how can that possibly be a hard concept?

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

I don't think there is any easy answer.

However, I believe that there are a lot people who don't realize how frustrating/expensive/time-consuming/difficult to understand our country's immigration system is. Should people come here legally? Absolutely, if they can. I worked (not too many moons ago) in a community health center where one of the things we did was immigration physicals. There were people from Mexico who began their immigration cases in 1988 that were just getting them processed in 2003! Those were people already in the US. Trying to get a visa from Mexico to the US is virtually impossible, upwards of 10 years and even then you're not guaranteed entry. So when I hear people say, "They should just come here legally!" I cringe because I know I sure wouldn't wait 10 years to go someplace legally and my kids are starving today, now.

My husband is Mexican. I am a US citizen. We have been married almost 5 years. We own a house together. We have a child. Our vehicles, bank account, church tithe account, all of it is in both our names. He has no criminal record. We pay taxes. Do you know that he still does not have his immigration stuff straight? Do you think it frustrates the life out of me? (the answer is yes, by the way.) Do I think there ought to be grace shown? (not just for me, but everybody in similar situations...)

I am not in agreement with people coming here to pop out babies just so the kid can carry a US passport. I'm not in agreement with anyone coming here -- legally or otherwise -- for the sole purpose of taking advantage of our system. Or US citizens who do the same thing for that matter. But I think there is a tendency -- and I mean nationwide, not necessarily on this forum -- to attribute to "illegal aliens" what is true of humanity in general.

In this neck of the woods I hear about drunk driving, pedophilia, working the system, not paying taxes, etc., all with "illegal aliens" somewhere in the same sentence. As if there were no good ol' home grown folk who drive drunk, molest children, and sit on their butt collecting disability when they're healthier than I am.

I realize everyone may not agree. But as someone who is right smack in the middle of the issue, I think it's far scarier from far away than from up close. I don't feel threatened by "illegal aliens" and I don't think they're contributing to our country's downfall.

[Euskadi1946]

Hmmm I do believe there is a big difference between undocumented workers and war veterans. Undocumented workers come her to live a better life than what they were living and by the way, there are many DOCUMENTED aliens as well as UNDOCUMENTED because they forged their papers serving in in the US Armed Forces in Iraq and if my memory serves me right many have died there. I admire our war veterans because they had a job to do and they did it. Unfortunately that job also included atrocities. Like I said war is hell and so is abject poverty!!!

[ylbourda]

Yes, I am a student nurse, one semester to go. Does that make me idealistic and to have blinders on? No, it doesn't. I have my eyes wide open and I live in area with a large hispanic population (many of whom are undocumented). At one of my clinical sites this summer, as we sat in report, we as mere students listened to the "season nurses" (who, as one poster wrote are tired of being judged by students) make very inappropriate comments about a pt of another nationality and speculated on her legal status. As students, we try to take the best attributes of the "seasoned nurses" that we work with (and many of the nurses we work with are wonderful and remember that we are their future coworkers and treat us with the same respect that we treat them) and try to incorporate it with how we want to be. We also, unfortunately, see some nurses who we do not want to be like. I wanted to become a nurse, later in life, because I care about people. I care not about where they come from, how they got here, or whether others deem them worthy of our taxpayer dollars. I care about how I can help them,and by helping others we help ourselves to become better human beings. Some of the posters here need to look in the mirror and see, regardless of how long you have been a nurse or how new you are to it, are you in the right profession?

[Cherish]

Forged papers to serve in the Military in Iraq? Please state your source. As a recent Veteran I have only met of one instance were a soldier was serving in the military wrongfullly (they were NOT an illegal alien however), they were a Visa resident and there papers got messed up and he thought he could legally serve (a Nigerian) and this was before 9-11. There are TOO many searches the military does, if you havent told them they WILL find out before you even swear in, FBI searches, security checks etc etc. I am a permenant resident (Canadian Citizen), and have been a green card holder for over 10 yrs. I have NEVER heard of a soldier recently (as in the past 10 yrs) being an illegal alien and serving. If you have a source (not well I know a friend who knows a friend- a legitimate source), by all means provide this.

P.S. Never killed anything besides a spider or bee so guess I need to face the tribunal.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I second the above post, as a veteran myself. Please find us a reputable and irrefutable source for these claims.

[Euskadi1946]

Not only that, but their birth rates are much higher than any other group, according to a recent TIME magazine article..

Recently, a Mexican flag was raised above a post office and another at a school.

Do you see what's happening here? Soon, because you can't be forced to show ID to vote, they will vote in their own into office and take control of the system from the inside.

So, it's not just healthcare that's in danger here.

RunningWithScissors, your comment smacks of racism, pure and simple!!!!