The problem, health leaders say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted or demoralized by the crisis. And many are leaving for lucrative temporary jobs with traveling-nurse agencies that can pay $5,000 or more a week.
Mmm, demoralized and...greedy!
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It's gotten to the point where doctors are saying, "Maybe I should quit being a doctor and go be a nurse," said Dr. Phillip Coule, chief medical officer at Georgia's Augusta University Medical Center
My eyeballs actually don't roll back far enough for this ^ one. ?
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"I think clearly people are taking advantage of the demand that is out there," Shields said. "I hate to use `gouged' as a description, but we are clearly paying a premium and allowing people to have fairly high profit margins."
Or this ^ one.
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"The nurses say, 'Hey, if I am not going to be treated with respect, I might as well go be a travel nurse,'" she said. "'That way I can go work in a hellhole for 13 weeks, but then I can take off a couple months or three months and go do whatever.'"
??
No doubt the situation is bad, but it's beyond disingenuous to pretend that all of this is primarily about Covid. As far as insinuating greedy motivations, I can't sum it up very well in a way that wouldn't get censored. One of the nurses mentioned in the article used travel money to pay off $50K in student loans. I suppose all is right with the world as long as it's just millions of individual citizens suffering and not businesses. The whole thing is somewhat sick.
In the 5+ years leading up to Covid, hospital admins have been downright gleeful over their own smug plans to profit all the more off of others' hard work and goodwill. Perhaps the number of times they can look people straight in the eye and make impossible demands and then treat them like trash when they can't do the impossible is coming to an end, or at least a hiatus. This kind of hatefulness did not used to be part of hospitals' dealings with nurses. They have been busy sending powerful messages from the top down that they could not care less if any given nurse works for them or not and have comported themselves as if mere mortals should grovel to be in their presence. They have been dismissive, disparaging and abusive. They appear to despise nurses and maybe patients, too.
And now, after spending years with mergers and takeovers and screwing communities across the country....they are actually going to cry in their beer about their problems.
I care about a lot of things, but I have zero sympathy for the concerns of hospital corporations. Zero. The rest of what I think while reading this article I can't print.
I have zero sympathy for hospitals and their staffing problems. They have treated nurses like *** for decades, low pay, mandatory OT, poor benefits, unsafe staffing, the list could go on. I'm over the, "it's a calling" mentality. Nursing a job that we should be compensated well for. I'm glad that nurses, including me, are finally fed up with the abuse and have and are leaving regular staff jobs behind for agency work, where we are paid what we are worth. Maybe, it will open the blind eyes of management and force them to revisit their abuse of nurses and do better. If it doesn't, then they can suffer the consequences of losing fed up staff.
I'm glad that nurses, including me, are finally fed up with the abuse and have and are leaving regular staff jobs behind for agency work
Don't disagree with your general comment.
I do think nurses should run with eyes wide open if they're going to run away (from direct employment by hospital corporations/large health systems). For most of my career nurses have been experiencing the effects of having decided to stick it to doctors at all costs. This was done, apparently, in favor of being abused by large corporations. ?
All initially good things can become completely perverted if people don't pay attention.
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
2 hours ago, RN1987 said:
If it doesn't, then they can suffer the consequences of losing fed up staff.
I have worked with travelers for the past three and a half years in critical care and it's been hit or miss over that time period. Generally, the quality of nurses that we are getting in my critical care right now is atrocious. On any given night at least half our staff is travelers. Two of them have one year total experience. The other day one had their first paralyzed patient and had no idea how to use a train of four or a BIS and then proceeded to titrate the wrong the meds based on the outcomes. Another thought we were giving fluids with potassium to reverse a high INR. I don't have the time to teach travelers, making more then twice my salary, how to be nurses. I have two others that generally won't peel themselves away from their phones, one who sits with two headphones in and sits facing AWAY from all the patient rooms, and the other spends more time advertising her alternative lifestyle situation than caring for a patient. Then again I currently also have lazy a$$ coworkers that are regular staff, too. I swear one nurse doesn't know what happens overnight if it's not on Tik Tok. We are about 15 total staff on nights. Right now there are only three of us that were working there a year ago. Everyone else is new to the unit, including two brand new grads, six months on the floor, that got awful orientations because our management doesn't give a crap either. I am charge 9/10 shifts lately and I am beyond fed up with the entire situation. I don't begrudge nurses their travel pay in general, but those that are in it just for the money and clearly don't have the skills or the interest in actually caring for patients, piss me off. And yes, regular staff coworkers that are the same also piss me off, but at a discounted price.
"The problem, health leaders say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted or demoralized by the crisis. And many are leaving for lucrative temporary jobs with traveling-nurse agencies that can pay $5,000 or more a week."
So the travel agencies can secure a better remuneration rate than the nursing unions?
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
2 hours ago, trixie333 said:
"The problem, health leaders say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted or demoralized by the crisis. And many are leaving for lucrative temporary jobs with traveling-nurse agencies that can pay $5,000 or more a week."
So the travel agencies can secure a better remuneration rate than the nursing unions?
Capitalism in an environment where unions are intentionally discouraged and unempowered. There's all of that talk that nurses have some superior responsibility for the patient or moral obligation or something.
So the travel agencies can secure a better remuneration rate than the nursing unions?
Unions aren't making money off of the hourly wages of nurses. They work to change policies for the long haul. Travel is temporary. How much is the travel company charging the hospital? I'm sure it's a good amount. Nurses need to unionise and strike.
3 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:
There's all of that talk that nurses have some superior responsibility for the patient or moral obligation or something.
Agree! The whole campaign of the nurse with a halo tirelessly treating patients with humility and servitude is so pathetic. Playing on the sympathies of good people to get them to go into debt to be a nurse and then crying poor mouth about wages after strategically driving them down is shameful, esp from corps making billions......... during. the. pandemic. It does not need to be repeated the horrible conditions that have existed for too long.
So the travel agencies can secure a better remuneration rate than the nursing unions?
Higher short term pay, yes, but with a catch. Actually, multiple catches.
Travel positions offer good money, but little stability. You might get a new position with little lapse, or you might not, and it's up to you to line up health insurance with no gaps. You might get a position that is exactly as advertised or you might walk into an unsafe nightmare where your license is on the line every shift.
Travel isn't an option for many nurses. If you have dependent family members, how are you going to travel and take care of young children or elderly parents? Also, the travel positions are often for very long hours with very little support. I've seen positions advertising "48-60 hours per week, the choice is yours" - like those were appealing options. My choice is neither. I have no desire to work that many hours a week, especially under some conditions travelers may find. Yes, someone can do it short term for a travel position, but no nurse is going to work that many hours per week long term without burning out.
On 9/17/2021 at 8:54 PM, AtomicNurse said:
Unions aren't making money off of the hourly wages of nurses. They work to change policies for the long haul. Travel is temporary. How much is the travel company charging the hospital? I'm sure it's a good amount. Nurses need to unionise and strike.
Agreed it's all about the long game. In many areas, unions have very little power or simply don't exist. If you look at the more union-friendly states, you'll generally find a much higher rate of pay than in non-union states. Even when there is not a union in a particular hospital, the presence of other unionized hospitals raises their pay. In a small city near me there are two hospitals: one union and the other not. One of my nursing professors said that traditionally the union would bargain for pay raises at that hospital, and soon after the other hospital would raise pay to compete. Even though only one hospital was unionized, both hospitals' nurses benefited from its presence.
Unions are about more than just collective bargaining for pay; they often have more say in working conditions and disciplinary procedures. There are per diem nurses at my hospital who work full time hours at a higher hourly rate than I get. Since I don't need benefits (my health care is covered by my husband's policy), I have sometimes thought about going per diem and gaining better flexibility and pay. BUT the thing that keeps me in my regular job is that I can't be in the union if I leave my control hour position. If something goes wrong, I have no illusions that the hospital will have my back. They'll not just throw me under the bus; they'll probably be driving it. Nope, I want someone who knows what is going on at any disciplinary meetings, and I want access to the union's legal council if it comes to that. Hopefully, I'll never have to test out my union's protections, but I want the peace of mind to know they are there.
I'm not going to pretend my hospital is perfect - far from it. But I firmly believe that my pay and working conditions are better than they otherwise would be because I'm in a unionized hospital in a union-friendly state.
Hard as hell for me to believe these execs have advanced degrees in business (because we sure as hell know they don't major in nursing or medicine).
They must have slept through business classes in business school.
Trump's degree was in business:) and he's not even good at it! Criminal cunning is not the same as success in making something. The old days were better when an MD or an RN with a degree in management ran the hospitals because they understood the whole picture. I was in a program that was a combined MSN and MBA but decided it wasn't for me after a year. Things went downhill when knowledge of clinical practices were deemed unimportant. It served it's function as a way to get bean counters in charge of nursing departments.
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
2 hours ago, subee said:
Things went downhill when knowledge of clinical practices were deemed unimportant.
I think this is really the bottom line for almost everyone working in hospitals these days. If we had ANY feeling that the people in charge truly understood what we're dealing with from a clinical perspective then maybe things would be better. But when someone in a suit from three towns over in my giant health system says all of a sudden we can't do something as we did before "because that's not how we're doing it anymore", I am labeled as resistant when I don't immediately embrace the change. No explanation, no evidence for the change, just do it. Oh yeah, and while you're at it, do more with less. That's a great motto for healthcare. Patients are just like widgets, right?
Oh yeah, and while you're at it, do more with less.
Very stressful to come to work and mentally wrestle for computers and machinery. Extra if you have to go to other floors when the omnicell or whichever brand doesn't have needed meds...then the side eyes from your favorite bully as you get in a long line to pull meds and get pts ready for procedures. good times...not
Until you see an ad for them. Then it's "we provide the very best for you", "we love our patients", and any other barf worthy slogan they're putting out there ??
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
The business model of healthcare is failing miserably. The whole system is in collapse because of this. COVID just has accelerated the speed at which said collapse has happened.
RN1987
21 Posts
I have zero sympathy for hospitals and their staffing problems. They have treated nurses like *** for decades, low pay, mandatory OT, poor benefits, unsafe staffing, the list could go on. I'm over the, "it's a calling" mentality. Nursing a job that we should be compensated well for. I'm glad that nurses, including me, are finally fed up with the abuse and have and are leaving regular staff jobs behind for agency work, where we are paid what we are worth. Maybe, it will open the blind eyes of management and force them to revisit their abuse of nurses and do better. If it doesn't, then they can suffer the consequences of losing fed up staff.