We can't eat

[vintagegal]

Nurses: we can't eat nor can we pay our rent. Why is it that inflation has caused such an uproar in our economy that a basic apartment 5 years ago costed 630 dollars and now it's upwards of 1200, 2200 in some areas. That, coupled with keeping the lights on, paying for a car, gas, other incidentals and a lagging wage has me absolutely concerned for the future of nursing. It's time to wake up! We are not being compensated fairly at all. Just think of all those ICD and CPT codes that are making these companies booku bucks while we struggle to survive. I don't want to drive a Bentley or live in a mansion. I just want to be able to afford basic necessities and have a good quality of life. Nurses wages and NP wages have stalled significantly in the last 5 years while everything else has gone sky high. Corporate salary increases of 2%?? What a joke, inflation is the highest it's ever been. And to resign your lease to find it's pretty much doubled is a catastrophe. I can't afford to buy a home, I can't afford much of anything. Meanwhile there is some airhead on social media showing off a new lip gloss and she gets paid to do it. I've worked through Covid, I've worked through every challenge in my life, and now I'm just wondering what's next.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

brandy1017 said:

Your comments don't make sense.  First you react with am I mansplaining or womansplaining.  Your quote, "Are you mansplaining or womansplaing?  I spent 42 years in nursing and another 10 retired but keeping up with the literature.  Since we are coming up to 2024 and not a few years out of the Crimean War, we've had plenty of time to evolve into the thinking of another century.  I remember claims of woman power since the 1970's:)"  

I was merely answering your comment which didn't make sense to me.  How does woman power impact nursing?  What does the Crimean war have to do with it?  We are long past Florence Nightingale, but not according to Vanderbilt's CNO who a few years past used her as the rationale for nurses doing housekeeping work in addition to their nursing duties!

As to what nurses get exposed to in school I couldn't say personally.  Someone here who was a clinical instructor said she was told not to say anything negative to them.  These old issues have worsened and many of the new grads now are also dealing with a lot more student debt than in the past.  Many quit their first year and within 3-5 years leave nursing entirely.  More concerning than that is the high amount of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and actual suicide in nurses today.  At least twice the general public that don't work in the healthcare field.  The most recent was ER nurse Tristan Kate Smith whose father found a note to her abuser the hospital healthcare system she wrote just months before she died.

I now relinquish this forum to you.   Everything you state is from the German Institute for the Patently Obvious:)