Nursing Shortage? Not really!!!!

Nurses Safety

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:angryfire I'm not too sure I believe in the nursing shortage. I believe it's a way for all hospitals, nursing homes, etc. to short staff us. If you think about all of your friends that have left nursing within the last, say 5 years, I'm sure you could come up with quite a few nurses. Now take that times, however many floors in your hospital, times other hospitals, etc. I hope you get my point. All of these nurses left because they were so disgusted with their treatment, the lack of respect, md's not listening to them, md's not answering calls, our hours and pay. I could go on forever about "CONDITIONS". :crying2:

I believe that if the hospitals, etc. started treating us better, paying us better, trying to work out some of these "CONDITIONS", and letting us give the patient care we all want to give, more nurses would come back into nursing. Rather than do the above, they would rather hire new grads (who don't get paid as much) and rip their way through them like they did the above, putting them in dangerous situations and being green they don't know their in over their heads. Or, they would rather steal nurses from other countries( who don't get paid as much), countries that could use the nurses more than we could. :crying2:

I think this is an easy way out for the hospitals and other nurse employers. All they have to do is whine a little and then "Stick it to us", and we're sucking up everything they say.......:rotfl: Come on people, lets grow some balls, or if you already have em, use em.... We need to do something NOW:nurse:

Yes, Brownie, each new generation comes in with high hopes and enthusiasm, thinks they will fix things, they will be the saviors of the profession, they will not succumb to burnout. Now I speak the 'Serenity Prayer' silently to myself while I drive to work each night.....and try not to be perfectionistic in a system that would chew me up and spit me out. I accept I can only do the best I can in a difficult situation. That is MY nursing reality today.

Yes, there is a nurse shortage, and one huge reason, is that the job has been made really difficult and grinding for those of us aged about 50 and onwards. Even to the point that it is difficut for us to get medical coverage! In no field do I think that age descrimination is more blatant than in the speedup conditions of hospital nursing. The field burns out its older work force, then the administrators start bleating about how they can't find people to do the work!

Another thing to mention is that there is a CNA shortage, too. And for many of the same reasons there is an RN shortage. CNAs should be considered part of the nursing shortage because they are giving some of the most important patient care. CNAs are nurses.

And on an even broader note, there is a shortage in the US of workers being given decent treatment anywhere. Nurses are workers, and all this talk of nursing being a profession and blah, blah, blah has often made most of us forget that we deliver most of our care to those who work just like us, and that us nurses are part of that same community. When the working community as a whole gets the shaft, then nurses will be getting a raw deal, too. Solidarity.

Nurse Hardee

Yes, there is a nurse shortage, and one huge reason, is that the job has been made really difficult and grinding for those of us aged about 50 and onwards. Even to the point that it is difficut for us to get medical coverage! In no field do I think that age descrimination is more blatant than in the speedup conditions of hospital nursing. The field burns out its older work force, then the administrators start bleating about how they can't find people to do the work!

Another thing to mention is that there is a CNA shortage, too. And for many of the same reasons there is an RN shortage. CNAs should be considered part of the nursing shortage because they are giving some of the most important patient care. CNAs are nurses.

And on an even broader note, there is a shortage in the US of workers being given decent treatment anywhere. Nurses are workers, and all this talk of nursing being a profession and blah, blah, blah has often made most of us forget that we deliver most of our care to those who work just like us, and that us nurses are part of that same community. When the working community as a whole gets the shaft, then nurses will be getting a raw deal, too. Solidarity.

Nurse Hardee

I can see this problem growing with time as well because the new Generation of "kids" coming up are fatalists and have zero work ethic, I mean I guess with all they have seen they just figure the ship and sinking and why they hell should I even try to bail water.

Believe it or not, there are new nurses out there with a good work ethic who are trying to improve things.... Sure there are some lazy ones, just like there are some older burned out lazy nurses.

Believe it or not, there are new nurses out there with a good work ethic who are trying to improve things.... Sure there are some lazy ones, just like there are some older burned out lazy nurses.

Not trying to offend anyone I was actually refering to the kids that are still in HS at this point and that all I seem to see is a mix of kids that want everything they want free and without working for it.

I get it. I just don't agree. My aunt graduated nursing school in the 60s and said that even back then, nurses were complaining about the poor quality of new graduates. The one constant in the world is the older generation thinking the younger generation is so different from the ones before.

To be honest, I see poor work ethic in all age groups and I do think it's important that it be adressed. I have worked with a number of older nurses who seemed to think they had "earned" the right to collect a paycheque without actually doing any work.

I get it. I just don't agree. My aunt graduated nursing school in the 60s and said that even back then, nurses were complaining about the poor quality of new graduates. The one constant in the world is the older generation thinking the younger generation is so different from the ones before.

To be honest, I see poor work ethic in all age groups and I do think it's important that it be adressed. I have worked with a number of older nurses who seemed to think they had "earned" the right to collect a paycheque without actually doing any work.

When I was a kid, 10/11 I started working throwing papers, I had to mow lawns in the summer and throw a paper route all year long because I wanted spending money, I rode motorcycles and i wanted yo buy gas and make repairs and eventually get a bettr bike etc. Today kids are not allowed to work. I went from throwing papers and cutting yards to working as a carhop at 14, legal age to get a Cycle liscense in OK, I worked carhop for two years until 16 then went to work at TG&Y (old type Walmart)for a year then our town got a McD's and i went to work there at seventeen until I finished HS. You now have to 16 to get a job even as a carhop for like sonic. I mena there are plenty of sonics around there are probably 5 with a three mile radius of where i am sitting but my 13 and 15 year old daughters can't even work there because you have to be 16. Throwing paper has basically been takene over by people old enough to drive or people that are having problems earing a lving without extra income who deliver papaers in the moring before they go to their real job. I guess this is just a rant but it does seem that to teach a younger generation work ethic they need to be able to work somewhere, and we all know tha the younger you learn something the more ingrained it is.

I'm with you on that. For me it was a paper route, to babysitting to a part time job (I think the legal age was 15 or 16 there too).

All right people, let's stay focused. How can we as nurses deal with all of these things that are going on. Short staffing, paperwork up the :imbar , no insurance (or little insurance) and let's talk about the pensions, or lack of them. Help:uhoh21: HELP!!!!! We need to figure out what we can do:nurse: .

I don't think that 'poor work ethic' is really the problem. Poor work ethic often flows from poor company attitude anyway. But problem is, companies really shouldn't be directing health delivery systems...PERIOD.

Profit making is not what any country should make as the primary drive in its health care system. Sadly, profit making seems to be driving everything the US government does nowdays, even up to and including the decision to go to war or not! So we can hardly expect that our corporate-run government will do the right thing, and put the public health back into its bloated medical system. Instead, without new citizen action, expect to see skyrocketting costs for more 'high tech' gadgetry, combined with penny-pinching decisions that destroy real care being delivered at the people level.

First stop to doing something about all this, is for medical people to stop allowing all this corporate baloney about how the US has such great medicine to keep going on so unchallenged. Even at the high end, US medicine is a total abomination and charade more than anything else. And at the bottom tier of healthcare delivery, it is torture and mutilation of the poor. So let's tell the public the truth (somehting the ANA has hardly ever done)! I'm sick of mistreating the sick and elderly in the name of care.

Nurse Hardee

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