RN's are part of one huge CULT!

Now in the business world for a business to be 'viable' they have a magic number for the sake of an argument lets make the number 2.85, each month health care managers have to achieve this number or come in lower for the efficiency to be reached!

RN's are part of one huge CULT!

Many of the readers of my blog will know that I had a passion for nursing, it overwhelmed me, it suffocated me, it thrilled me, it was my life, I lived, breathed and would have died for nursing. I spent years and years researching best practice. I have spent years educating students and new grads sharing my passion and showing what a great profession they are working in. I defined myself by being a nurse first and everything else second.

Now 22yrs later I have just woken up in a shocked frenzy and I realize that I don't have the passion anymore I am tired, worn out, I ache in every bone in my body, I am sick of the moaning and complaining of my fellow workers and I no longer try to enthuse them.

Patients who were once the love of my life now seem harder to manage, they argue more, they want more, they threaten that if you don't do what they want they will either sue, report you, get you fired and most of the requests are so unreasonable.

Every patient, their relative, their meaningful other and their dog has read something on the internet that contradicts everything you are doing! Every pt, their relative, their meaningful other and the dog has watched lawyers on the tv, the cinema, on the internet and on huge billboards tell people about how you can sue the hospital and staff, just phone the 1-800 number and you can be rich.

As a nurse for 22yrs i can count on one hand (well maybe two) the amount of times i have worked anywhere which has been adequately staffed.

Just when staffing levels reach a 'perfect' number several things happen

  1. somebody calls off
  2. somebody leaves for a new and more exciting opportunity and they normally leave in 2's or 3's
  3. somewhere else is poorly staffed so somebody will go and help out there
  4. somebody injures themselves on duty and is sent to er
  5. somebody gets pregnant or goes on maternity leave oh yeah 2 weeks paternity leave

So what happens now...

  • the somebody who called off, stays off or is replaced by the next call off
  • the somebody who left for a new and exciting career opportunity is never replaced
  • the somebody who floats is always floating
  • the somebody who was injured is now on workers comp so still a number but cant work

So now we are extremely short of staff and we only had one week of the perfect number!

In today's nursing economy what we find is number crunching and hours per treatment reports, all designed by business men/women to make health care more affordable.

Now in the business world for a business to be 'viable' they have a magic number for the sake of an argument lets make the number 2.85, each month health care managers have to achieve this number or come in lower for the efficiency to be reached!

God help you if your hpt (hours per treatment) comes in higher, this means you are not reaching the efficiency that higher management have decided is the right number for your department, and all departments are not the same.

So what dictates how low or high your monthly efficiency number is calculated?

In a health care environment it is calculated by staffing levels, so if you want to be efficient then you stretch your staffing levels thin!

Yes by working your staff short, not replacing staff who have left and not taking into consideration the variables you can stream line your magic number and appear to be a wonderful manager.

If you are in my opinion if you are adequately staffed or over staffed you will not achieve your hpt, you will go over, indicating you are not efficient. What happens now is a huge spotlight comes over your department and everything you do is scrutinized and the very first place the business managers look is at the staff.

They say 'the first cut is the deepest' so in my place of work staffing is where you have to make the cuts, hours of the social worker and the dietitian are looked at first and they trim a few hours here and a few hours there. Then the secretary's are cut to one. Of course then the clinical staff are looked at!

Rn's are encouraged to drop hours, maybe a day a week this is done on a voluntary basis at first.

If nobody comes up to the plate to offer to drop hours you look at several things

  1. Performance
  2. Call off's
  3. Time served
  4. Discipline

Normally at this time, staff are always aware so they start looking around for another job because they are scared and feel unsettled.

The point I am trying to make is we need these staff but somebody in an ivory tower has decided we can manage with less staff so they have got to go to make the bottom line more acceptable.

So now we achieve the desired rn staffing level (remember we are expensive) and the ivory tower people are happy.

The amount of work is still the same, nothing changed with the amount of patients but now we have less rns working harder to look after more patients. Oh yeah now you also have to do secretarial work, social work and dietitian work because their hours have already been cut, but pts still need 24 hour care and advice, and the rn can multitask.

The rns who are left are happy to have a job, they have always worked hard so they soon adapt to the increased patient load and if they don't like it they can leave but there are no jobs because every department is facing the same problem. So they shut up and put up and management is happy again, until...........well you have increased your efficiency of 2.85 hpt lets now aim for 2.75 hpt and the cycle happens again.

The spotlight, the job cuts

Always remember the powers that be want you to know there is no nursing shortage just a shortage of jobs, this is a means to keep us under control, now they can number crunch and make 1 rn do the job of 2 rn's.

In reality there is and always will be a nursing shortage.

Rn's are now a part of a huge cult, we are being hypnotized into believing there is no nursing shortage.

Wikipedia says

Quote

This article gives a general cultural account of "cult". For its usage in the original sense of "veneration" or "religious practice", see cult (religious practice). For its use in a scientific, sociological context see new religious movement. For other uses, see cult (disambiguation).

The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre.[1] The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. the narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective. It is also a result of the anti-cult movement which uses the word in reference to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and that are believed to use dangerous rituals or mind control. the word implies a group which is a minority in a given society. The word was first used in the early 17th century denoting homage paid to a divinity and derived from french culte or latin cultus 'worship,' from cult- 'inhabited, cultivated, worshiped,' from the verb colere 'care, cultivation'

Up Vote Up Vote ×
madwife2002

About madwife2002, BSN, RN

RN with 26 years of experience many of those years spent in dialysis. I have worked in acute care, home, ICHD as a CN, FA, and currently a director.

26 Articles   4,777 Posts

Share this post

Share on other sites
Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.
http://www.howcultswork.com/
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in MedSurg, OR, Cardiac step down.

What would happen if nurses and healthcare staff (the ones that actually) work all went on strike simultaniously? :idea: Could they then demand better?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I will retire in six years.

Halleluja.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Oncology&Homecare.

The mingling of the business model and nursing will not do the nurse of the patient any good. It is a depressing picture that you paint madwife. What is to become of us? I think of this often but have no answers. Anybody out there with any good ideas? I'm close to the end and am crawling to the finish line. The disturbing thought is that I might have to be a patient!:eek:

Up Vote Up Vote ×

My honest opinnion is - their is no shortage of money in private/civilian healthcare. No one will ever convince me that when a private civilian Healthcare system's CEO makes million dollar salaries there is a money shortage. It just doen't make ANY sense. How can you pay a multi million dollar salary and have the audacity to cry poor? And ask for state and federal funding, reinbursement , aide and handouts that these greedy crack pots believe(delusionally believe) their institutions are deserving of??Cut that corporate payroll and put it back into the operation of that healthcare institution!! Simple, not rocket science!! Why in anyones right mind would you cut the nursing and medical staff- the very people who have the legal licensed body of knowledge, responsibilty and accountability of that patient's safety? It is a total departure from logic or substance abuse.

With this in mind- there is a shortage of nursing JOBS- a 'man made, willfully engineered' job shortage to PROTECT that multi million dollar salary. The rules of good conduct, civil rights, professional ethics have been deliberately ignored, bent and totally chucked out the window to PROTECT that multimillion dollar salary. That's all it is. If Mr/Mrs CEO was truely interestd in quality safe patient care and outcomes that they would want their own family members subjected to- there simply would not be the situation that exists today in healthcare.(poor staffing, patient safety and practice issues and negligence)

Benefits aside for the moment. Why would a place of business/employment even ask about something so personal as does the nursing candidate have Genital Herpes or even smoke cigarettes? Can they perform thier job? Do they ask the new hire doctors if they have genital herpes- probably not! do they ask the new hire accountnt if they smoke or have genital herpes- probably not! or the new hire coder or auditor?? Or what about the new hire lawyer in risk management?? Probably not. I bet money on it - they don't!!

The only answer I believ to all this- to stop this insanity is to have the government take over the running of these healthcare systems. The government at least respects the laws of it's own. The healthcare industry has become the embarassment of this country because of this greed. Just last week - a federal report on the bureau of labor statistics came out giving alcolades to the the AUTO industry for the creation of thousands of new jobs and described the health care industry as "dissappointing" with reference to job growth. The next sentance in the report was the increase in unemployment in the month of June. This is an embarassment. Looks like the talented business minds are employed in the Auto industry!! (Throw the second rate MBA's to the healthcare industry.)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

Well said kcmylorn I couldnt agree more!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

"The average compensation nationally for a hospital CEO was $452,400 in 2010 and the average for the CEO of a health system was $683,000, according to a survey conducted by Integrated Healthcare Strategies, a business consultant specializing in the health care industry".

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/hospital-ceo-pay-has-997155.html

Some of these salaries are seven figures. They constantly cry about struggling to make ends meet, yet they can pay top dollar for CEO positions? Can any of us even imagine making over $1 million a year? EVERY YEAR? Yet we have to take unpaid days if we call off sick more than three times in a year? We have to pay $1000 out of pocket for our health care expenses and we WORK for health care facilities? Isn't it ironic? Shouldn't health care workers at least have great health benefits?

Yep, I believe you may be right.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, wound care.

A big part of the problem, is that say 25 years ago, the CEO of a corporation used to make 20x the salary of the most populous employee. Now, CEO's demand multiples in the hundreds, not just about 20x. This squeezes the heck out of the rest of the company. This sort of thing is what is killing american companies more than anything.

Sheer greed.

Jane

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ED, ICU, PSYCH, PP, CEN.

And amazingly enough when management and the CEO have family members in the hospital they are given extra staff, the VIP room, all staff is alerted to the fact that there is a VIP pt. So these families never see what really goes on. And you make sure that the pt recieves flawless, seamless care (often to the detriment of your other pts) because you don't want to get your ass fired for not being perfect

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, PIC, BURN UNIT, PEDS, MED SURG, PSY.

To Madwoman 2002,

I love it! But more nurses and more patients should know that's how healthcare is run today. There are so many of us that if we could just team up we'd be a force to be reckoned with. But we'd all have to do it. Problem is we believe there is a shortage of jobs, we believe we should be used as shills to cover for hospitals and insurance companies, but we really should be with the patients while others' trained in other fields should be doing that paperwork. Now, we have the science of medicine, the business of medicine and no one considers the Art of Healing. Human connection helps to heal, and unless we get back to basics and help nurture and educate our patients there won't be healing in our healthcare. There will be body mechanics and techies but without human touch we'll have given away our strongest healing tool. Besides, nurses need to look at how else they can be advocates for patients. Defenseless defenders are no good at all. How does our organization back us? And if they do, we should know what they do. I've been searching so I think I'll call them or write to them today, and find out how they have our backs....

Up Vote Up Vote ×

KCM...... you are 100% correct! Not 99%. Cutting nurses is a joke. All they have to do is cut a little at the top! All I want to see is::::::: the salary of the top dogs plus the bonuses. They do not get paid by the hour. They get extra bonus which is taxed differently, by making more $ by cutting staff. My fantasy is to have these hugely salaried people as patients in the hospital. Of course the nurse will be told that they have a V.I.P. (big deal). My fantasy is that they are not there for anything serious of course, but that it will take time to get to them, etc. hee hee let them experience the truth.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment