We can all agree that in most areas of the nation, there is ample supply of nurses at the bedside, and in many areas, supply has well exceeded demand. Why they ask, are nurses always leaving the bedside? ANSWER: We didn't. The profession left us.
NursesGeneral NursingArticle
We can debate the why's, where's, how's, when's of the toxic culture in many hospitals and nursing homes.
More work, less support staff. More work, less pay. Too many patients. Higher acuity, more orders, fewer nurses being hired. My boss is dumb. My boss is toxic. Yes, its a BIG factor in a nurses decision to leave. We hate drama. We want to do our jobs in peace.
But those are just workplace semantics. There is drama in every workplace, wether in nursing, retail, law enforcement, food services, housekeeping, gaming, farming, hospitality, transportation, or basket weaving. Yes, its there now, and yes, it was there 50 years ago.
Truth be told, years ago, before corporate mergers/ takeovers/ acquisitions became as simple as buying pizza, we had hospitals and nursing homes. Today we have hospital systems and nursing home chains. With these corporate conglomerates at the helm, our profession was taken away. We lost our voices. We lost our sanity. We lost our zeal. Same thing happened to the banking system in the 1980s. Local stand alone banks were bought up, one by one, until we had 6 or 7 worldwide megabanks.
Corporate mentality stole the nursing profession and burned it at the stake. What used to be patient focus, is now billing focus. Today we do not have patients, we have inventory. Some generate substantial money, others are a drain. This is why, when and how "staffing to census" began rearing its ugly head. Back in the old days, there was no such thing as staffing to census. Nurses were hired on certain units, and that is where they stayed. Some days were super busy, others were not.
Staffing in hospitals and nursing homes today is soley based upon inventory (patients) and money (acuity). Not enough inventory in the burn unit? Float the nurse. Not enough inventory in L & D? Tell the nurse to stay home. Too many nurses on telemetry? Send 2 home, or let them work as techs on med-surg. And the list goes on.
What used to be paper documentation by exception, became EMR to generate maximum amounts of reimbursements from medicare, medicaid, and insurance. This is why we have box checkers (formerly known as nurses) spending 75% of their time at computer stations, and 25% of their time at the bedside. If you're lucky. So the next time your wife, husband, brother, sister, friend or companion starts mocking you for being a serial job hunter/ hopper, send them to this article.
Spread the word. Nurses didn't leave the bedside, the profession left us.
