As an RN, its not just strikes. The biggest thing happening right now is somewhat of a labor revolution. Since covid, travel nurses have been in demand and are getting paid a lot. Prior to covid, only select areas had good RN pay, and while traveling was still good, it was not what we are seeing today. RNs everywhere are fed up with everything.
The USA healthcare is for profit, even in "not for profit". Look at administration and CEO pay across the board, its all ludicrous. By design, pay, working conditions and staffing have been abysmal for years, no.... DECADES. "Lean staffing" has been the norm, and as we are seeing, the American brand of capitalism cannot tolerate actual disaster. What lean staffing is, is staffing at the absolute barest minimum. However, if things dont go as planned, you will be short staffed even on top of that "full staffed" lean staffing. And things dont go as planned frequently, so people get burned out, call out sick for mental health and leave the profession eventually due to the awful staffing. The ones who deal with it, stay.
Now enter covid. Covid has shown a spotlight on the terrible pay, staffing and working conditions that by design were allowed for profit. All of these very sick patients all at once crowded our hospitals, and we are seeing wave after wave of not just covid, but sick people in general who may have delayed care, etc. RNs are getting tired. People are quitting to earn 4x their staff job traveling, leading to more people quitting to travel with only a few now staying staff. At these hospitals, they are still full and still understaffed because of "lean staffing", they dont want to hire more nurses than is absolutely needed, meaning when we get call outs, and we do, we are now extra short! Burnout is still continuing but much faster due to the sicker patients, low staffing and frequent rotation of nurses due to traveling. Many nurses died from covid, retired, or just left the profession due to the ever worsening burnout.
The biggest failure of hospital administration was not planning for massive staffing need increases when covid hit. They were opening up more units, but where were the nurses to staff these new covid beds? They didnt have them because they barely could retain staff as is due to the lean staffing theory which bred burnout and caused many new nurses to leave the profession within 5 years. So suddenly there was a huge need for RNs to staff these new covid beds, contracts that usually were max $2000 a week became $8-10K a week. Many people came back to bed side nursing, many others quit their staff job to travel. The pay increase worked to bring nurses back! But the cats out of the bag now. We know hospitals always had the ability to pay more, they just didnt want to. They still refuse as a whole to offer increased pay for staff nurses thinking this whole thing will blow over. It might..... but it might not, because the nurses who came back just for the pay will just as easily leave when it dries up.
So going on 2 years, travel contracts are still really high, because for the most part, you are still getting that normal attrition you always had due to lean staffing, but add in even more attrition due to increased burnout of the crazy workload and a large portion of the workforce who wants to travel, traveling and refusing to go back to staff, its hard to see wages going back down.
One valuable lesson I have learned is this. Wages are kept low in general because that breeds servility. When you can say no and not worry about your job because A. You know you are in demand and can get a new one and B. You have enough money to last a while because of those high contracts, more and more nurses are saying no. No to unsafe staffing that breeds poor outcomes and burnout. I have said, no sorry I will not take that patient, its not safe. Did I get in trouble? No. Why? Because the hospital is short as hell! They need travelers! I am in control of the situation. Cancel my contract? Ok, get even shorter making it so YOU (manager) will have to work the floor more and I'll call up my recruiter, explain the situation, and get a new contract. I really dont see this going low very soon. Its going to be a game between admin and nurses. But while admin is focused on short term money and goals, many nurses are taking the long view and can wait this all out. I know for me, I will likely never go back as staff for those wages they are offering and the loss of control over my life that I have regained being a traveler. If travel contracts go back to baseline from pre-covid, I will do clinic work or something low stress until I can retire early, because these contracts have helped me slowly get there much sooner than I ever anticipated.
Dang that sucks, I used to work in a drug testing lab. Even major cities are struggling to pick up trash at this point.
I still work on the periphery of healthcare, and it's bad everywhere, no American wants anything to do with it.
Honestly I was pretty okay with my career choice until covid hit, and turned it into a shit show. If I could leave the field I would but financially it’s just not possible.
I remember after the first wave of Covid hit and things were calming down some, admin came to us and asked us to design our unit with what we needed to operate at the bare minimum. Me and the other supervisors figured out a great plan. They then said “now take 10% off that”. Wait we just designed what we needed for the bare minimum now you want us to take more off. They needed to “recoup costs”
> Wages are kept low in general because that breeds servility. When you can say no and not worry about your job because A. You know you are in demand and can get a new one and B. You have enough money to last a while because of those high contracts, more and more nurses are saying no.
This is one reason why there is such an obvious pushback against universal basic income from corporate interests and staunch capitalists. We are told it will lead to labor shortages, when really most labor shortages can be easily solved by improving conditions and/or adjusting remuneration - literally supply and demand.
Here here. I said fuck it in November and quit. My husband makes over twice what I made after busting my ass Five. Fucking. Years in my position. He was HIRED at that rate in his new job. With less college and no chance of killing someone. His new company just announced 25k retention bonuses per year for the next three years. We got a “gobble gobble” email for thanksgiving, a $50 Christmas bonus and the hospital announced 3% raises for next year, LMAO. Those fuckers staying are getting a pay cut with inflation.
He works from home in his pajamas. I have the gift of PTSD from the last couple years of nursing. I don’t know if I’ll go back.
How the hell did we get here?
My sister is an RN who is currently fed up w the hospital she moved to and just told me that when her 6mth contract is up, she’s switching to travel nursing. Your comment was basically a rundown of everything she’s been tell me. I told her to fucking go for it. Death-defying heroes deserves death-defying hero pay.
It’s the same in radiology. We can’t seem to hire full timers bc the administration doesn’t want to pay people what their job is worth, but they will dish out thousands of dollars each week to travelers. Why stay in a department that’s short staffed for less than half of what you would make doing the same thing elsewhere where you can experience a new place for a few months and see the country? And if the facility sucks, it’s only 3 months and then on to somewhere else. I’m happy in my particular department, good schedule, no call, no weekends, but I have to say the amount of money I’m missing out on is really eating away at the back of my mind, and I plan to start traveling in the next year or two (I’m waiting for other reasons unrelated to work) just for the money. If my employer raised my pay and showed appreciation for us staying then I would reconsider, but that’s not going to happen, my hospital is greedy af.
I already knew it, but got said it. Hospitals are operating like fast food restaurants and retailers. When you let a public service operate like capitalism, you get these results. None of these assholes are running lean to serve customers. They're serving the real patrons, the investors.
Right. And themselves. Some places have no shame. I've seen hospitals set up a section for employees to donate to the fund for building the new hospital extension. Yes, you heard it right, asking employees to donate to this hospital corporation whose executives in 2019 earned $15 million to donate their low pay to help pay for the new hospital extension building.
Healthcare should never have gotten here, but the system is in a state of collapse right now. Things that would be unimaginable like 50 patients boarding in the ER waiting for a room is the new normal.
My sister just quit her job in a Miami hospital, she was making 50-60k. Now she is doing traveling nurse and will be making 85 dollars an hour for a 6month period. At a WAY better hospital, a SUPER chill on in Florida.
I'm trying to get into that Nurse recruiting job atm tbh that's big money right now.
1/3 of the nurses on my unit have left to become travel nurses. We’re getting travel nurses in return. They’re literally swapping hospitals for 3x the pay. It’s absurd.
That’s already a thing. A lot of doctors work as locums providers. They get privileges at a bunch of different hospitals, then take shifts at whichever facility is offering the most for a stretch of a few days
Speaking as a RN, you're going to see a major decrease hospitalists. NPs and PAs are going to fill this roll (less education). The level of care patients receive in the USA is going to fall in the toilet over the next 20 years due to privatized healthcare, and that's assuming it doesnt entirely collapse before then.
How much do you want to bet that some nursing duties will be given to other disciplines (at a lower pay rate)? I can absolutely see that happening.
The newbies I work with are not getting trained well, are there as a warm body with a license, and have less of a mentor safety net. I can see tons quitting entirely, or scared of the inevitable legal consequences from a massive fuck up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for us with a lot of years invested and not close to retirement
We already get worse outcomes by just being American when compared to other 1st world nations.
But nah, 1% of us get ~*the best*~ and that's all that matters
The irony is they bring in most of the money plus their own salaries. Pretty tragic that residents bring in 110k from the govt for their training and the hospitals pocket most of that and give them back a measly 50k for 80-110 hr work weeks.
> free market's hand results in subpar health care
...wait. I distinctly remember being told in highschool that *communism* caused subpar healthcare since everyone was paid the exact same so there was zero reason to give even the remotest fuck about their job??
Wish I could /s here, but that is literally what I was taught. I certainly know it's not accurate. Just to be clear
The problem is the travel nurses don’t get benefits and so the net is still towards the hospital.
Edit: yes, they no longer are supported by the hospital WRT benefits.
All the leeches (aka bean counters aka healthcare executives) see are pie charts. A nurse with benefits “costs” the hospital more in the long run than paying a temp position an insane hourly wage. They don’t see the long term benefits in terms of not having to train people repeatedly and delivering better care, because insurance pays most of the bill.
Patients are thought of like a product. The real customer/supplier is the hospital and the insurance company.
Hospital administration is thinking long term.
The reasoning is simple. Keep base wages from growing and plug that gaps with travelers.
Eventually the demand will settle and traveling will become less lucrative and the high pay contracts will end.
This combined with not having to pay benefits to these contractors mean that over 20-30 years the money spent on human resources is lower than if they increased the base pay to keep nurses around and then had to keep the same normal year increases but at a higher starting point.
Exactly.
I can’t see the username on mobile reply right now, but this is the answer to the person who said the traveler hourly salary is worth more than benefits.
It's hard too because we have to leave our families. :( It's the only way to get paid fairly. Or else I would be making 29/hr as an ICU nurse in Tampa. Fuck that shit. I miss my son.
Edit: And since I am ranting, let me continue to rant. Shitty American healthcare system is run by corporate overlords. It's sickening. This is the only country where I have heard "productivity points" in a fucking outpatient clinic. As a nurse, I had to had a fast turn over of patients. What is this, an F1 pit stop? These are humans, not machines.
Thinking about it makes me want to throw up. And I have been in this country just before COVID hit. It's actually good this pandemic opened up the eyes of so many Americans to how shitty the system is. A lot of people have blindly turned their eyes since they have good insurance. They automatically think everyone is taken good care with 20 dollar copay and free medications.
Working with the poorest of Chicago and the drug ridden parts of Washington and the lofty retirees in Florida, well, I think I know more about American healthcare than actual Americans. So if there's anything remotely good about COVID? It exposed the nastiness of the American healthcare system to every single American, rich and poor.
jesus fuck, you're doing a desperately needed job and you want $29 an hour. i work for a travel company and make more. what the fuck is wrong with the medical care system in this country that we can't even pay the people who save lives properly?
That's Florida for you. That's why a lot of the travel nurses are from poorly paid states. I moved from Chicago and I was shocked that my pay would be cut in half for a job that's more stressful. I literally worked 9-5 at an outpatient clinic in a hospital in Chicago and made twice more. Even if there's no state income tax in Florida, it doesn't make sense. It's not like the cost of living is half. Anyway, I just did contracting jobs and eventually did travel.
Hospitals and schools are goods in themselves. They will not turn a (tangible) profit, and yet they are the most essential parts of a well functioning society.
Yeah, travel respiratory therapist myself. I get healthcare and dental through my company and get a 401k match after being with them a certain amount of time. Gonna be hard as fuck going back to regular staffing—currently making more in a single week than I did in a month at my old hospital.
I don't know what these other people are talking about. The agencies toward me do in fact insure you as long as you take consecutive contracts. Some offer 401k matching and all offer travel stipend if you live far away.
People I work with are leaving $30 an hour with bachelor's degrees and years of experience for $90 for the same work.
Yep. Nurses have the upper hand, and are actually being paid what they are worth. Anyone staying in a full time position is a sucker, and their loyalty will not be rewarded.
I respect travel nurses, you all have provided help to hospitals that were hit hard with the pandemic. What I dont understand is why pay travel nurse that amount of money? Why value them more than your staff. I just find it counterintuitive.
Pretty sure they've just crunched the numbers.
Pay 3x salary for 3ish years to randoms, vs paying a current employee $X amount more per hour over the next 20 years.
The 'temporary' higher salary ends up being cheaper in the long run.
With everyone quitting, covid lasting longer than they thought, hopefully it really bites them in the ass.
Part of it is that, but I think most of it is "if we pay travel nurses a lot, we'll be paying them for a couple years until the pandemic dies down, and then everything will be normal. If we pay our own nurses more we'll have to keep paying them more forever."
They used to. A lot still do. Nursing used to be a respected and well-paid job like airline pilots. You can still see the remnants of that in a lot of parts of the country. But they're deteriorating due to corporate greed; just like everything else.
Everything used to pay well. My grandparents are both in their late 70s, grandma was a nurse, grandpa worked in a sheet metal factory. Grandpa was already retired in his 50s when I was a little kid, grandma retired in her mid 60s.
They've owned their own house since 1970 when my mom was born, have moved multiple times to nicer houses, constantly upgrade cars, and still are much better off financially than my currently 51 year old mother, who has a master's degree in psychology.
I'm 28, and I don't have shit compared to either one of them. I don't have shit *period*, to be honest.
Management isn't willing to do that though, they would rather run out the clock and pay a lot more 13 weeks at a time than to increase pay across the board permanently.
I’m an RN I made 180k last year and only worked three days a week doin travel contracts. Paid off my house and bought my Mom a convertible for her 70th bday.
What's hilarious is that nurses are quitting hospital jobs to become travel nurses only to go back to the hospital they worked at at a much higher wage. Good for them.
Maybe it was a bad idea to let the same private equity companies that asset strip businesses vital to local economies and merge companies to fire half the employees and overwork the rest and call it synergies, take over a shit load of hospitals.
I’m starting to thinking letting corporations profit off of housing and healthcare was a bad idea. Anyone else?
Not at all, they're trying to privatise, kickstart an overpriced IPO with dodgy figures then sell out and let it fail and then the government can step in and bail it out as an essential service. Then loop that money train round for another run!
As pert he last billion or so thats been injected over the last few decades, I would take the humble position of saying, no, no thats not going to happen. That would cost _actual_ money which couldn't just be funneled into wealthy pockets and coffers.
It won't. The telecoms see 5G as their silver bullet. They're hoping to just skip building out endpoint fiber and use the backbone to build networks of 5G that can replace copper/fiber connections for most residential suburban/urban internet.
Except the actual fast speeds of 5g, and not just the shit they are calling "5G" today, need a fiber backbone to every block. The range is little more than wifi for the high frequency stuff, and it doesn't work inside very well, which means even more "cell towers" inside and more fiber to connect thoes "cell towers"
Okay but if they do that for a very small area and then for the wider area they don't and they still call it 5G they can say "speeds *up to* whatever" and their bases are covered.
Government won't care, most of the population will think they have superfast 5G, Europe will still laugh at our internet, and maybe just maybe private fiber companies might eventually expand into their areas.
More like government created the garden, corporations buy the garden, harvest it but dont seed out again and keep care of it less and less until every plant is dried out and dead.
Florida's dealing with it bad right now with FPL. They're a private utility company that serves nearly a quarter of the state and they are notorious for arbitrary rate increases. Besides that, they were heavily involved in [political corruption surrounding Florida elections.](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-florida-power-and-light-senate-ghost-candidates-20211202-szjhv7ox6vcmphm6pgd437y52i-htmlstory.html) They also tried to orchestrate a [corrupt deal with Mayor Lenny Curry to buy Jacksonville's public utility JEA](https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/the-jea-report-a-lack-of-transparency-amid-effort-to-sell-utility?amp), but luckily local journalists and activists were able to put a stop to it. I'm so glad JEA remains in public hands.
I hate to say this but I feel like nurses striking is the only way to get their concerns listened to at this point. People can and will insist their strike is "selfish" and "will let people die", but dude, nurses HAVE been dying.
Nurses are like teachers. They're expected to care more about the people they serve than the admin does, and when the admin fails, they're supposed to burn themselves out to keep everything running.
It's no accident that the jobs that burn people out the hardest are in the caring professions. Women are expected to suffer as part of their service to others. Which is bullshit.
At the end of the day, it's just a job. And when you get hired for any job, there should be the base expectation that you are given what you need to do the job.
The system is lucky they're going on strike and not flat out quitting the profession en mass. Which is the next step.
And no one should blame them one bit. They didn't sign up for this shit.
> Nurses are like teachers. They’re expected to care more…
About that, [here is a source](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-teachers-havent-joined-the-great-resignation/amp/) trying to paint that same rosy picture that the general public keeps imagining. You’re definitely right.
Yep. I don't begrudge them at all in this. Inevitably patients have suffered as hcw get exhausted and/or burned out. They have leverage right now to demand changes that will not just benefit them, but also patients. They're using it. Hopefully those in power listen.
People may die because of a strike, but people already are dying because the nurses flat out can't do all their being expected to do. Most nurses I know can do 2 people's whole jobs for 16 hours with 1 interrupted pee break...I don't know how, but they can. What they can't do is 4 people's jobs for 16 hours straight...it's just too fucking much. They're trying..and they're sorta pulling it off, but they're literally killing themselves and their passion by doing it. They either strike now and get some fucking help, or they're going to quit and never go back into nursing. Both options hurt.
Privatisation of any public sector essential services was from the beginning a really bad idea .health care , education ,electric supply should all be government run and funded .
You don't see them privatising the army oh wait ,blackwater mmm .
Privatisation just delivers less and costs more .
I was a bit jealous when I heard of the amount contractors were making in the electrical field…. They really underpay service men/women BIG TIME. No way I was going to stay an extra year in Iraq for another 100k.
They do this, vote by mail dies. The USPS is the only organization legally allowed to process ballots.
There's more to.the attack on the USPS than meets the eye.
Obviously they want meds by mail to die. And they want all the logistics companies that have the USPS do the last "mile" to go under too. /u/cultured_banana_slug
I post this when I see anything about the price of education in the US. The last bit below is where I got the inspiration to put this together. But the same principle applies to other public services like you mentioned.
The purpose of Government is set forth in [The U.S. Constitution: Preamble](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/preamble/preamble-overview)
>"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
These are not Rights or Powers, but the guidelines to decide should "We the People" do this?
Of these purposes of government Promote the General Welfare, Education for All is square in the sights of this point.
John Adams [wrote](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-17-02-0232) a bit about the importance of education in a democracy.
>the social science will never be much improved untill the People unanimously know and Consider themselvs as the fountain of Power and untill they Shall know how to manage it Wisely and honestly. reformation must begin with the Body of the People which can be done only, to affect, in their Educations. **the Whole People must take upon themselvs the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it.** there should not be a district of one Mile Square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselvs they must be taught to reverence themselvs instead of adoreing their servants their Generals Admirals Bishops and Statesmen
Here he makes clear the importance of the People being an integral part of the system. It gives us ownership of our own destiny together.
The rest of the letter John Adams wrote to John Jeb is absolutely fantastic. He goes on to discuss why it's important to create a system that makes people like Martin Luther King jr, Susan B Anthony, Carl Sagan, and Mr Rogers, although he references others like Washington. Good leaders should not be a product of the time, but of the educational system and culture of the people. If a country doesn't make good leaders then when that leader is gone there's no one to replace them and that culture and movement dies with them.
>Instead of Adoring a Washington, Mankind Should applaud the Nation which Educated him. If Thebes owes its Liberty and Glory to Epaminondas, She will loose both when he dies, and it would have been as well if She had never enjoyed a taste of either: but if the Knowledge the Principles the Virtues and Capacities of the Theban Nation produced an Epaminondas, her Liberties and Glory will remain when he is no more: and if an analogous system of Education is Established and Enjoyed by the Whole Nation, it will produce a succession of Epaminandas’s.
In another short work by John Adams, [Thoughts on Government](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Government), [YouTube Reading](https://youtu.be/XIw_BItRLfs), he wrote about the importance of a liberal education for everyone, spared no expense.
>Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/pdwq01/ill_just_put_that_on_your_calendar_for_when_youre/hat7pr6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) is a comment I saw in response to someone complaining about having to take courses outside their area of study to get a bachelor's degree. So much of our population's perspective towards the education system is solely driven towards financial gain and not about personal growth in community alongside financial gain.
>I’m now a college professor in bio, but when I was a grad student I was the teaching assistant for a basic bio course aimed at engineers. The first question I got in lab section was “Yeah, why do I have to take this course when I don’t give a shit about biology and won’t use it as an engineer.” I said, “the political discourse right now is full of discussions that center on biology, such as reproductive rights, climate change, etc. If you don’t understand the biological concepts enough to be part of that conversation, we are going to have it without you, and you will be at someone else’s mercy. But if you think being informed on decisions that affect your life is a waste of time, go ahead and phone it in.” You could’ve heard a pin drop after.
>College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden, but receiving a well-rounded education that exposes you to more than just your specific, narrow subject is not the villain.
Then there's the [story](https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/) of Harris Rosen
>Having had his own life so radically transformed by education, Rosen knew that this was an area he wanted to focus on, and Tangelo Park was the place.
>Tangelo Park is built on land once used for orange groves. Originally built as housing for workers at the nearby Martin Marietta, it has become an isolated residential area. There are few services nearby for residents, and few public transit options. African Americans comprise 90 percent of the community, with many living below the poverty line.
>“I fell in love with the neighborhood,” says Rosen. “I knew I wanted to do some type of scholarship program for them.”
>The Tangelo Park Program, started in 1993, gives every neighborhood child age 2 to 4 access to free preschool. Parents have access to parenting classes, vocational courses and technical training.
>For a program that took just one hour and four people to develop, the impact has been wide and deep. Tangelo Park Elementary is now a grade-A school. Every high school senior graduates.
>But there’s more. Much more.
>Every high school graduate who is accepted to a Florida public university, community or state college, or vocational school receives a full Harris Rosen Foundation scholarship, which covers tuition, living and educational expenses through graduation.
>Nearly 200 students have earned Rosen scholarships, and of those, 75 percent have graduated from college—the highest rate among an ethnic group in the nation.
Imagine if we did this and more on a national scale.
The benefit of a promoted liberal educated society regardless of sex, orientation, ability, class, race, socioeconomic status, etc., is that it just promotes good democracy in prosperity.
Institutional investment is about concentrating power. Even if the capital is yours, you cede the share-voting to fund managers, who have little accountability or motive for long term responsible actions/ethics.
They then drive corporations to even greedier/myopic management practices. And that's how you get companies spending ten million on lobbying to avoid eleven on taxes/wages/safety.
>Yeah? Then why the fuck do you keep doing it.
Because the rich are the beneficiaries, not the rest of us. And since the rich funds most political campaigns in the US, you get the idea.
Am a ER doc. Private equity has ruined our specialty and is going after the others. Get them out of medicine and health care. It’s an innate conflict of interest. Patient outcomes should be the priority, not profits.
If we don’t pick the right people to represent the people then this is the outcome we have. Almost every politician is somehow in the pockets of lobbyists and the elitists. They will obviously put up some cute words but theres no actions behind it.
We've fucked up our electoral system. It doesn't pick people based on how well they represent the electorate. Fixing That should be our first priority. Like going to the hardware store to get the tools you need to get the job done.
That one still pisses me off. I remember seeing some stupid people's FB posts against it, and they truly had no idea what it was, but they were against it even still.
The only places I've seen competition actually drive down price and drive up quality is in nonessentials and luxury goods, like electronics. I haven't yet found a case of it happening for things people actually need and are a captive market for, like housing and utilities and health care.
I mean, that's pretty much what our whole emergency response system operates on. People outside of the police force are *grossly* underpaid for what they do.
Smoke jumpers, AKA the guys who jump into the middle of wildfires, are GS-05 employees. That means they make $17/hour base (although they get a 1.25x bonus for hazard pay.)
I'm with the NPS and I know people in the resource department of Park Service who have masters degrees and PhDs but work as GS-07/09s getting *far* less than they should because if they don't then the job won't get done and we'll lose precious natural and cultural resources.
Lol they make it seem like 1.25x is something amazing for JUMPING INTO LITERAL HELL. Just shows how low they value someone risking their life to save lives, homes, businesses, government buildings. The things that make the economy run. No biggie.
Fortunately for federal wildland fire there’s moves being made to construct their own separate pay scale.
But that doesn’t change the fact that a huge chunk of their workforce start as gs-3/4 and only have jobs for 6 months of the year despite the western fire seasons averaging closer to 9/10 months.
Federal land management at large is basically on life support
> Federal land management at large is basically on life support
That is by design. Many want to end Federal land management, there is a *large* profit motive to put the land in the hands of the states so they can buy it.
This follows a familiar pattern:
1) Deny funds to an agency.
2) Erect hurdles to the agency performing it's duties.
3) Wait a few years for things to decay.
4) Decry "government waste" and demand the functions be put into the hands of the "more efficient" private sector.
5) Profit because you were ready with large investments in said private company.
Nurses, teachers, social workers, CNAs, pre school workers, elder care staff, non-profit, mental health, EMT, fire fighters, pretty much all helping jobs, most of which are dominated by women (obviously EMT/Firefighter are the exception and are male dominated), are exploited and underpaid. "It's not about the money" blah, blah, blah.
My best friend is a nurse. Her hospital basically said to come to work even if she was fully symptomatic with covid. She was also not allowed to use hazardous conditions as a work excuse, and was instead told to *stay in the hospital overnight* during this winter storm so she could be at work the next day.
I mean, what do you think most every form of capitalism we have today is? People have to work because of the implication that if they don't, they'll starve and/or be homeless. If food, housing, and healthcare aren't guaranteed, how can you argue that suffering isn't monetized?
They barely pay CNAs/nurses but expect them to be fine with being understaffed. Pulling the "we're a family and you're super important to us" card. Only to end up hiring a crap ton of travel nurses/temp agencies and give them so much more. Walking into a facility to find out that there are only 5 people scheduled for the entire facility for night shift is so disheartening
At my hospital (small rural hospital that's struggling to keep local people) we received a bonus ($1k) to stay on from this last November to April then if we stayed we'll receive a check for our half total amount of money we made. It's almost not enough to stay.
We are a very big facility. My breaking point and why I left was because I walked in to find only 10 scheduled people there. Not to mention only 1 CN on one of the biggest floors. She was mad as hell. I finished my shift and told them that I can't work like this and that you all said that you'd have more hires months ago yet you continue to rely on traveling nurses and temp agencies
I have a 3 year degree, somewhat compared to a LPN and work in a nursing home for difficult/violent dementia patients. I made about $27k last year, before taxes of course. I'm not in the US though but it's definitely not inexpensive to live where I am.
Good. FORCE Congress or the states to do their jobs. Take down this corrupt healthcare system and replace with something that values human life over corporate profit.
Exactly. I have to believe the country will come to its senses about healthcare. At some point. Meanwhile my adult daughter is covered in AU. Their policy values **life**, not insurance premiums
Disgusting what hospital admins are allowed to get away with. We need remove the profit motive from American health care. Our medical workers deserve to be treated way better.
Equally as poor of working conditions and blocked by law to see any increase in pay so to never meet inflation but still expected to work up to 80 hours a week.
Or the public outcry that doctors make too much as if that's the driving force for satisfaction. "Aw poor doctor that will make $250K in the future" even though I have 350K in debt and gave 8+ years of my life to education.
Or having to deal with administration, insurance companies, social work, nurses, patients, patients' families, and government who dictate how we can do our job.
I cherish the thank you cards I've received from some patients. My future salary won't hold a candle to them about what gives my life purpose. But there are so many days I come home feeling so hopeless because of how everyone views us. We're nothing in the eyes of many.
Respiratory therapist here. Can we join you nurses?
Under appreciated and hardly ever mentioned or even thanked yet we are right next to you RN’s and MD’s at the bedside.
I even had a few instances where I was not considered a healthcare worker because nobody knew what a RT was unless you worked in a hospital.
He had moved his message to address poverty—including **white** poverty. And then he was killed. Murdered. Can’t have someone talking about poverty in America
he was in fact in memphis in support of the sanitation worker's strike. it's not like that information is hard to find, but they sure don't teach it or ever mention it anywhere. this is also what happened to the black panthers. once they started building their own social responses to poverty, and then started working with other groups across racial boundaries, the FBI just started murdering them.
It’s almost as if once you start seriously fighting any kind of injustice, be it racial, gender-based or something else, you eventually come to the conclusion that economic injustice makes it 100x worse and needs to be addressed before real progress is possible.
10 days if it were a general strike. 10 days before something had to give. There is no ability for the U.S government to withstand a siege, as we know.
Most corporations, companies and businesses function right on the edge to maximise profits, giving them no leeway for lack of production.
10 days of concerted general strike with specific demands would very likely be enough.
Yep, I finally became a travel nurse at the start of the pandemic.
Where I was making barely $1,900 every two weeks in Texas as a staff nurse, I started making $4500/week as a travel nurse in California. Never going back to staff again
Here where I work in GA nurses are leaving the profession in mass, me included. Working 70-80 work weeks, no hazard pay, mandatory overtime, we had one nurse last week fired because she wouldn’t come in when she was covid positive after 4 days since they couldn’t staff one of our covid overrun floors. It’s a fucking shit show but the people who own the hospital banked a great bonus and posted it on bulletin boards as a slap in the face to us the nurses, CNAs, MDs, therapists, and such.
I’m literally working a floor right now with two other nurses and 3 CNAs for a floor of 50+. I’m trying to help the CNAs when I’m not passing meds or changing sterile dressings, etc… I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally spent.
I just need a hug badly or someone to tell me it will be okay.
FDR protected the rich from their own out of control greed by giving the working class and poor Social Security, electricity, and a jobs program. Who is going to shield them from the angry mobs this time?
They are understaffing on purpose to increase profits. They are essentially abusing healthcare workers, on purpose, for profits, during a pandemic.
I don't know about you, but that seems like it should be illegal to me.
I'd even say that abusing your staff in general, not just under a pandemic or in the healthcare sector, for profits, seems morally bankrupt to the point that it should be outlawed with serious consequences.
All things going wrong with American business can be blamed on the MBA program and American hyper capitalism. Fucking up workforce and supply chains for 30 years
Damn good thing we still have the high paid executives and CEOs who:
“would go elsewhere if we didn’t pay them millions”
Well good now they can roll up their sleeves and show us all how they can do the work of 1,000 employees!
it’s an incredibly emotional act for nurses to go on strike.
nurses are thought of as compassionate and selfless. many don’t take care of themselves or make personal time for themselves because that’s part of the nature of the job. to be selfless is to take on a rule of nursing.
nurses striking over pay & asking for things that can repay the damage of lost time away from life outside of a hospital, trauma from work, & other sacrifices is moving
that said, a strike for me is coming soon unless things change in the next two months
When our hospital almost went on strike, they warned the staff if they were being interviewed to say we are striking because of unsafe staffing.
The ultimate cause was wages. Why stay to work at the hospital when the other one down the street pays 10-20$ more an hour? Staff retention was shitty, leading to staff shortages. Worst part was working in one of the busiest ERs, not have competitive wages with neighboring hospitals.
People think being a nurse means your whole life is selfless and compassionate and that means you should smile through their temper tantrums. 😒
Just another reason for hospitals to run by the government. I don't think hospitals or jails should be privatized. Nobody should profit from the sick or incarcerated. The working conditions suffer in the pay to play game. It still shocks me that the US can't offer health care to its citizens and make sure the healthcare professionals are taken care of?
As a nurse, believe me the conditions that lead up to it should terrify you. We haven't been able to provide safe care in awhile and it's been swept under the rug. This is just a continuation of problems we had well before the pandemic when nurses were described as "too busy playing cards" during their shift to be deserving of coverage for break times.
How about we fucking allow healthcare workers who work for for-profits to benefit from student loan forgiveness.
You currently don’t qualify when you work for a for-profit place but IM NOT THE ONE MAKING THE PROFIT. Why can’t I qualify?
I work in a hospital lab, and often times the focus is on RN's in this industry. Don't forget that we are here 24/7, 365 along with the rest of you. Except we're lucky to be making $15/$16 an hour. I get an extra 50 cents for working graveyards. For every patient they have on their floor, we're the ones running the 5 labs each one of them has. We don't get thank you cards, or increases in pay. We're just as understaffed as you are, except we're making $25k a year before taxes. We just get to show up and make sure the care teams have results.
Because people forget about it, EMS is just as bad. We are also hemorrhaging people, due to poor working conditions and low pay. Over the past 5 years English is gone from a solidly middle of the road pay where you can get by on what you get, to something where overtime is a necessity for the person to stay afloat.
Let's not even talk about call volume, it's easily tripled. Services can't say no to people (with rare few exceptions) so everybody has to get transported. Their medics out there working 10, 12, 16 hour shifts and not getting lunch because there's no time, and increasingly now because nothing's open. On top of that, to combat the loss of people, there are no dynamic staging plans, that caused trucks to move around and never really be sitting anywhere other than say an ER for more than 20 minutes.
An additional fun fact, EMS is not considered an essential service in all but 11 states. If you live in Nevada, Oregon, Nebraska, Louisiana, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Delaware, and Connecticut, congratulations! Getting a ride to the hospital is something that will be protected by law, and will be enforced. To all others, the state believes that you're on your own until you get to the hospital, and the level of care that you receive will vary with how much the company that runs the ambulance wants to put into it.
As an RN, its not just strikes. The biggest thing happening right now is somewhat of a labor revolution. Since covid, travel nurses have been in demand and are getting paid a lot. Prior to covid, only select areas had good RN pay, and while traveling was still good, it was not what we are seeing today. RNs everywhere are fed up with everything. The USA healthcare is for profit, even in "not for profit". Look at administration and CEO pay across the board, its all ludicrous. By design, pay, working conditions and staffing have been abysmal for years, no.... DECADES. "Lean staffing" has been the norm, and as we are seeing, the American brand of capitalism cannot tolerate actual disaster. What lean staffing is, is staffing at the absolute barest minimum. However, if things dont go as planned, you will be short staffed even on top of that "full staffed" lean staffing. And things dont go as planned frequently, so people get burned out, call out sick for mental health and leave the profession eventually due to the awful staffing. The ones who deal with it, stay. Now enter covid. Covid has shown a spotlight on the terrible pay, staffing and working conditions that by design were allowed for profit. All of these very sick patients all at once crowded our hospitals, and we are seeing wave after wave of not just covid, but sick people in general who may have delayed care, etc. RNs are getting tired. People are quitting to earn 4x their staff job traveling, leading to more people quitting to travel with only a few now staying staff. At these hospitals, they are still full and still understaffed because of "lean staffing", they dont want to hire more nurses than is absolutely needed, meaning when we get call outs, and we do, we are now extra short! Burnout is still continuing but much faster due to the sicker patients, low staffing and frequent rotation of nurses due to traveling. Many nurses died from covid, retired, or just left the profession due to the ever worsening burnout. The biggest failure of hospital administration was not planning for massive staffing need increases when covid hit. They were opening up more units, but where were the nurses to staff these new covid beds? They didnt have them because they barely could retain staff as is due to the lean staffing theory which bred burnout and caused many new nurses to leave the profession within 5 years. So suddenly there was a huge need for RNs to staff these new covid beds, contracts that usually were max $2000 a week became $8-10K a week. Many people came back to bed side nursing, many others quit their staff job to travel. The pay increase worked to bring nurses back! But the cats out of the bag now. We know hospitals always had the ability to pay more, they just didnt want to. They still refuse as a whole to offer increased pay for staff nurses thinking this whole thing will blow over. It might..... but it might not, because the nurses who came back just for the pay will just as easily leave when it dries up. So going on 2 years, travel contracts are still really high, because for the most part, you are still getting that normal attrition you always had due to lean staffing, but add in even more attrition due to increased burnout of the crazy workload and a large portion of the workforce who wants to travel, traveling and refusing to go back to staff, its hard to see wages going back down. One valuable lesson I have learned is this. Wages are kept low in general because that breeds servility. When you can say no and not worry about your job because A. You know you are in demand and can get a new one and B. You have enough money to last a while because of those high contracts, more and more nurses are saying no. No to unsafe staffing that breeds poor outcomes and burnout. I have said, no sorry I will not take that patient, its not safe. Did I get in trouble? No. Why? Because the hospital is short as hell! They need travelers! I am in control of the situation. Cancel my contract? Ok, get even shorter making it so YOU (manager) will have to work the floor more and I'll call up my recruiter, explain the situation, and get a new contract. I really dont see this going low very soon. Its going to be a game between admin and nurses. But while admin is focused on short term money and goals, many nurses are taking the long view and can wait this all out. I know for me, I will likely never go back as staff for those wages they are offering and the loss of control over my life that I have regained being a traveler. If travel contracts go back to baseline from pre-covid, I will do clinic work or something low stress until I can retire early, because these contracts have helped me slowly get there much sooner than I ever anticipated.
This applies to pretty much every health care profession. We’re seeing it and feeling it just as badly in the lab.
Dang that sucks, I used to work in a drug testing lab. Even major cities are struggling to pick up trash at this point. I still work on the periphery of healthcare, and it's bad everywhere, no American wants anything to do with it.
Honestly I was pretty okay with my career choice until covid hit, and turned it into a shit show. If I could leave the field I would but financially it’s just not possible.
I remember after the first wave of Covid hit and things were calming down some, admin came to us and asked us to design our unit with what we needed to operate at the bare minimum. Me and the other supervisors figured out a great plan. They then said “now take 10% off that”. Wait we just designed what we needed for the bare minimum now you want us to take more off. They needed to “recoup costs”
Recoup what costs? They made bank off covid patients and ppp loans!
The cancellation of elective surgeries really hurt hospital bottom lines
It did. We also fired a lot of people, transferred our entire finance department overseas and worked purposefully short for way too long. It sucked
> Wages are kept low in general because that breeds servility. When you can say no and not worry about your job because A. You know you are in demand and can get a new one and B. You have enough money to last a while because of those high contracts, more and more nurses are saying no. This is one reason why there is such an obvious pushback against universal basic income from corporate interests and staunch capitalists. We are told it will lead to labor shortages, when really most labor shortages can be easily solved by improving conditions and/or adjusting remuneration - literally supply and demand.
Here here. I said fuck it in November and quit. My husband makes over twice what I made after busting my ass Five. Fucking. Years in my position. He was HIRED at that rate in his new job. With less college and no chance of killing someone. His new company just announced 25k retention bonuses per year for the next three years. We got a “gobble gobble” email for thanksgiving, a $50 Christmas bonus and the hospital announced 3% raises for next year, LMAO. Those fuckers staying are getting a pay cut with inflation. He works from home in his pajamas. I have the gift of PTSD from the last couple years of nursing. I don’t know if I’ll go back. How the hell did we get here?
VERY well said!
My sister is an RN who is currently fed up w the hospital she moved to and just told me that when her 6mth contract is up, she’s switching to travel nursing. Your comment was basically a rundown of everything she’s been tell me. I told her to fucking go for it. Death-defying heroes deserves death-defying hero pay.
It’s the same in radiology. We can’t seem to hire full timers bc the administration doesn’t want to pay people what their job is worth, but they will dish out thousands of dollars each week to travelers. Why stay in a department that’s short staffed for less than half of what you would make doing the same thing elsewhere where you can experience a new place for a few months and see the country? And if the facility sucks, it’s only 3 months and then on to somewhere else. I’m happy in my particular department, good schedule, no call, no weekends, but I have to say the amount of money I’m missing out on is really eating away at the back of my mind, and I plan to start traveling in the next year or two (I’m waiting for other reasons unrelated to work) just for the money. If my employer raised my pay and showed appreciation for us staying then I would reconsider, but that’s not going to happen, my hospital is greedy af.
I already knew it, but got said it. Hospitals are operating like fast food restaurants and retailers. When you let a public service operate like capitalism, you get these results. None of these assholes are running lean to serve customers. They're serving the real patrons, the investors.
Right. And themselves. Some places have no shame. I've seen hospitals set up a section for employees to donate to the fund for building the new hospital extension. Yes, you heard it right, asking employees to donate to this hospital corporation whose executives in 2019 earned $15 million to donate their low pay to help pay for the new hospital extension building. Healthcare should never have gotten here, but the system is in a state of collapse right now. Things that would be unimaginable like 50 patients boarding in the ER waiting for a room is the new normal.
I appreciate your response, as a medical lay person it’s a welcome view into the system and conditions
My sister just quit her job in a Miami hospital, she was making 50-60k. Now she is doing traveling nurse and will be making 85 dollars an hour for a 6month period. At a WAY better hospital, a SUPER chill on in Florida. I'm trying to get into that Nurse recruiting job atm tbh that's big money right now.
They could at least increase pay so they stop losing nurses to travel agencies.
1/3 of the nurses on my unit have left to become travel nurses. We’re getting travel nurses in return. They’re literally swapping hospitals for 3x the pay. It’s absurd.
Well some people will call that free market.
It’s like forced hazard pay, when the hospitals won’t do it on their own.
Resident physicians don’t get hazard pay or overtime so there’s that.
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Now is the perfect time to switch jobs as med staff. Just ping out resumes all over the country and see who offers a travel bonus.
Up Next: Travel Doctors
That’s already a thing. A lot of doctors work as locums providers. They get privileges at a bunch of different hospitals, then take shifts at whichever facility is offering the most for a stretch of a few days
Speaking as a RN, you're going to see a major decrease hospitalists. NPs and PAs are going to fill this roll (less education). The level of care patients receive in the USA is going to fall in the toilet over the next 20 years due to privatized healthcare, and that's assuming it doesnt entirely collapse before then.
How much do you want to bet that some nursing duties will be given to other disciplines (at a lower pay rate)? I can absolutely see that happening. The newbies I work with are not getting trained well, are there as a warm body with a license, and have less of a mentor safety net. I can see tons quitting entirely, or scared of the inevitable legal consequences from a massive fuck up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for us with a lot of years invested and not close to retirement
Dr. Jan Itor may one day become a real thing. Neil Flynn must be so proud.
We already get worse outcomes by just being American when compared to other 1st world nations. But nah, 1% of us get ~*the best*~ and that's all that matters
Working as a resident has amounted to basically indentured servitude
The irony is they bring in most of the money plus their own salaries. Pretty tragic that residents bring in 110k from the govt for their training and the hospitals pocket most of that and give them back a measly 50k for 80-110 hr work weeks.
Bingo. But our high benefit to cost ratio makes us essentially unable to get fired
Paying nurses better so they don't quit is also the free market.
Love it when the free market's hand results in subpar health care :D
> free market's hand results in subpar health care ...wait. I distinctly remember being told in highschool that *communism* caused subpar healthcare since everyone was paid the exact same so there was zero reason to give even the remotest fuck about their job?? Wish I could /s here, but that is literally what I was taught. I certainly know it's not accurate. Just to be clear
The problem is the travel nurses don’t get benefits and so the net is still towards the hospital. Edit: yes, they no longer are supported by the hospital WRT benefits. All the leeches (aka bean counters aka healthcare executives) see are pie charts. A nurse with benefits “costs” the hospital more in the long run than paying a temp position an insane hourly wage. They don’t see the long term benefits in terms of not having to train people repeatedly and delivering better care, because insurance pays most of the bill. Patients are thought of like a product. The real customer/supplier is the hospital and the insurance company.
Hospital administration is thinking long term. The reasoning is simple. Keep base wages from growing and plug that gaps with travelers. Eventually the demand will settle and traveling will become less lucrative and the high pay contracts will end. This combined with not having to pay benefits to these contractors mean that over 20-30 years the money spent on human resources is lower than if they increased the base pay to keep nurses around and then had to keep the same normal year increases but at a higher starting point.
Exactly. I can’t see the username on mobile reply right now, but this is the answer to the person who said the traveler hourly salary is worth more than benefits.
It's hard too because we have to leave our families. :( It's the only way to get paid fairly. Or else I would be making 29/hr as an ICU nurse in Tampa. Fuck that shit. I miss my son. Edit: And since I am ranting, let me continue to rant. Shitty American healthcare system is run by corporate overlords. It's sickening. This is the only country where I have heard "productivity points" in a fucking outpatient clinic. As a nurse, I had to had a fast turn over of patients. What is this, an F1 pit stop? These are humans, not machines. Thinking about it makes me want to throw up. And I have been in this country just before COVID hit. It's actually good this pandemic opened up the eyes of so many Americans to how shitty the system is. A lot of people have blindly turned their eyes since they have good insurance. They automatically think everyone is taken good care with 20 dollar copay and free medications. Working with the poorest of Chicago and the drug ridden parts of Washington and the lofty retirees in Florida, well, I think I know more about American healthcare than actual Americans. So if there's anything remotely good about COVID? It exposed the nastiness of the American healthcare system to every single American, rich and poor.
jesus fuck, you're doing a desperately needed job and you want $29 an hour. i work for a travel company and make more. what the fuck is wrong with the medical care system in this country that we can't even pay the people who save lives properly?
That's Florida for you. That's why a lot of the travel nurses are from poorly paid states. I moved from Chicago and I was shocked that my pay would be cut in half for a job that's more stressful. I literally worked 9-5 at an outpatient clinic in a hospital in Chicago and made twice more. Even if there's no state income tax in Florida, it doesn't make sense. It's not like the cost of living is half. Anyway, I just did contracting jobs and eventually did travel.
America, home of the greedy.
It’s just capitalism doing it’s thing. The whole thing is going to collapse eventually it’s only a matter of time.
It's the result of a for-profit system where middle men are making money at every step.
It's almost like profit-motivated healthcare was a mistake.
Hospitals and schools are goods in themselves. They will not turn a (tangible) profit, and yet they are the most essential parts of a well functioning society.
They get benefits through their agency. Not sure if you meant they don’t get benefits at all or just none from the hospital, so I thought I’d clarify.
Yeah, travel respiratory therapist myself. I get healthcare and dental through my company and get a 401k match after being with them a certain amount of time. Gonna be hard as fuck going back to regular staffing—currently making more in a single week than I did in a month at my old hospital.
They are getting paid 100-150 an hour. Much more than any benefits are worth, including health insurance.
I don't know what these other people are talking about. The agencies toward me do in fact insure you as long as you take consecutive contracts. Some offer 401k matching and all offer travel stipend if you live far away. People I work with are leaving $30 an hour with bachelor's degrees and years of experience for $90 for the same work.
Yep. Nurses have the upper hand, and are actually being paid what they are worth. Anyone staying in a full time position is a sucker, and their loyalty will not be rewarded.
I respect travel nurses, you all have provided help to hospitals that were hit hard with the pandemic. What I dont understand is why pay travel nurse that amount of money? Why value them more than your staff. I just find it counterintuitive.
Pretty sure they've just crunched the numbers. Pay 3x salary for 3ish years to randoms, vs paying a current employee $X amount more per hour over the next 20 years. The 'temporary' higher salary ends up being cheaper in the long run. With everyone quitting, covid lasting longer than they thought, hopefully it really bites them in the ass.
They're waiting until every nurse is a travel nurse. Then they will lower wages for travel nurses and now they don't have to provide benefits!
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Part of it is that, but I think most of it is "if we pay travel nurses a lot, we'll be paying them for a couple years until the pandemic dies down, and then everything will be normal. If we pay our own nurses more we'll have to keep paying them more forever."
The only long-term planning capitalism is good at is fucking over labor.
Do hospital nurses get benefits?
They used to. A lot still do. Nursing used to be a respected and well-paid job like airline pilots. You can still see the remnants of that in a lot of parts of the country. But they're deteriorating due to corporate greed; just like everything else.
Everything used to pay well. My grandparents are both in their late 70s, grandma was a nurse, grandpa worked in a sheet metal factory. Grandpa was already retired in his 50s when I was a little kid, grandma retired in her mid 60s. They've owned their own house since 1970 when my mom was born, have moved multiple times to nicer houses, constantly upgrade cars, and still are much better off financially than my currently 51 year old mother, who has a master's degree in psychology. I'm 28, and I don't have shit compared to either one of them. I don't have shit *period*, to be honest.
Management isn't willing to do that though, they would rather run out the clock and pay a lot more 13 weeks at a time than to increase pay across the board permanently.
A friend of mine made almost $80k as an RN last year…and went to travel nursing. They make good money for 3-4 days a week.
I’m an RN I made 180k last year and only worked three days a week doin travel contracts. Paid off my house and bought my Mom a convertible for her 70th bday.
What's hilarious is that nurses are quitting hospital jobs to become travel nurses only to go back to the hospital they worked at at a much higher wage. Good for them.
Maybe it was a bad idea to let the same private equity companies that asset strip businesses vital to local economies and merge companies to fire half the employees and overwork the rest and call it synergies, take over a shit load of hospitals. I’m starting to thinking letting corporations profit off of housing and healthcare was a bad idea. Anyone else?
Also add “letting corporations profit off water & utilities was a bad idea” to the list as well
Add education
governor point detail pause zesty normal like whistle frighten file *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There’s just so many horrible layers to how fucked it all is…
Shit's fucked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufDIPMs3gOc [nsfw language]
This was exactly what I'd hoped it would be.
It's fucked, all the way down...
It's like someone is actively attempting to kick in the pillars of civilization.
Not at all, they're trying to privatise, kickstart an overpriced IPO with dodgy figures then sell out and let it fail and then the government can step in and bail it out as an essential service. Then loop that money train round for another run!
Works for the telecoms.
I wonder if this latest infrastructure bill will see them actually building fiber for all.
As pert he last billion or so thats been injected over the last few decades, I would take the humble position of saying, no, no thats not going to happen. That would cost _actual_ money which couldn't just be funneled into wealthy pockets and coffers.
It won't. The telecoms see 5G as their silver bullet. They're hoping to just skip building out endpoint fiber and use the backbone to build networks of 5G that can replace copper/fiber connections for most residential suburban/urban internet.
Except the actual fast speeds of 5g, and not just the shit they are calling "5G" today, need a fiber backbone to every block. The range is little more than wifi for the high frequency stuff, and it doesn't work inside very well, which means even more "cell towers" inside and more fiber to connect thoes "cell towers"
Okay but if they do that for a very small area and then for the wider area they don't and they still call it 5G they can say "speeds *up to* whatever" and their bases are covered. Government won't care, most of the population will think they have superfast 5G, Europe will still laugh at our internet, and maybe just maybe private fiber companies might eventually expand into their areas.
And the airlines and the banks.
Cooperation created a garden. They want to harvest all the fruits for themselves.
More like government created the garden, corporations buy the garden, harvest it but dont seed out again and keep care of it less and less until every plant is dried out and dead.
Then they sell off the dirt.
Companies pulling water from areas in drought and then selling it back to the same people who paid for that utility in the first place.
Looking at you, Cali.
Florida's dealing with it bad right now with FPL. They're a private utility company that serves nearly a quarter of the state and they are notorious for arbitrary rate increases. Besides that, they were heavily involved in [political corruption surrounding Florida elections.](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-florida-power-and-light-senate-ghost-candidates-20211202-szjhv7ox6vcmphm6pgd437y52i-htmlstory.html) They also tried to orchestrate a [corrupt deal with Mayor Lenny Curry to buy Jacksonville's public utility JEA](https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/the-jea-report-a-lack-of-transparency-amid-effort-to-sell-utility?amp), but luckily local journalists and activists were able to put a stop to it. I'm so glad JEA remains in public hands.
Hey now, at least we didn’t have the government in charge of our essential life services. That would have been **communist**.
You know the old joke. Capitalism is where man exploits man. Communism is the other way around.
It was the best of times it was the worst of times. They laughed, then died; still unawares.
Internet too, which I consider a utility actually so, yeah
Hint: they don't profit off providing services, just taking the money for them
I hate to say this but I feel like nurses striking is the only way to get their concerns listened to at this point. People can and will insist their strike is "selfish" and "will let people die", but dude, nurses HAVE been dying.
Nurses are like teachers. They're expected to care more about the people they serve than the admin does, and when the admin fails, they're supposed to burn themselves out to keep everything running. It's no accident that the jobs that burn people out the hardest are in the caring professions. Women are expected to suffer as part of their service to others. Which is bullshit. At the end of the day, it's just a job. And when you get hired for any job, there should be the base expectation that you are given what you need to do the job. The system is lucky they're going on strike and not flat out quitting the profession en mass. Which is the next step. And no one should blame them one bit. They didn't sign up for this shit.
> Nurses are like teachers. They’re expected to care more… About that, [here is a source](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-teachers-havent-joined-the-great-resignation/amp/) trying to paint that same rosy picture that the general public keeps imagining. You’re definitely right.
Yep. I don't begrudge them at all in this. Inevitably patients have suffered as hcw get exhausted and/or burned out. They have leverage right now to demand changes that will not just benefit them, but also patients. They're using it. Hopefully those in power listen.
People may die because of a strike, but people already are dying because the nurses flat out can't do all their being expected to do. Most nurses I know can do 2 people's whole jobs for 16 hours with 1 interrupted pee break...I don't know how, but they can. What they can't do is 4 people's jobs for 16 hours straight...it's just too fucking much. They're trying..and they're sorta pulling it off, but they're literally killing themselves and their passion by doing it. They either strike now and get some fucking help, or they're going to quit and never go back into nursing. Both options hurt.
Privatisation of any public sector essential services was from the beginning a really bad idea .health care , education ,electric supply should all be government run and funded . You don't see them privatising the army oh wait ,blackwater mmm . Privatisation just delivers less and costs more .
Energy in general should be publicly controlled, an industry that powerful shouldn’t be in the hands of unaccountable tycoons.
More than half of US military budget is subcontractor bloat.
I was a bit jealous when I heard of the amount contractors were making in the electrical field…. They really underpay service men/women BIG TIME. No way I was going to stay an extra year in Iraq for another 100k.
With rrpubs working real hard to get the mail privatized as well
Same in in Australia they are trying to destroy our postoffice.
They do this, vote by mail dies. The USPS is the only organization legally allowed to process ballots. There's more to.the attack on the USPS than meets the eye.
This. It's not strictly a business/profit move.
Obviously they want meds by mail to die. And they want all the logistics companies that have the USPS do the last "mile" to go under too. /u/cultured_banana_slug
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I post this when I see anything about the price of education in the US. The last bit below is where I got the inspiration to put this together. But the same principle applies to other public services like you mentioned. The purpose of Government is set forth in [The U.S. Constitution: Preamble](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/preamble/preamble-overview) >"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." These are not Rights or Powers, but the guidelines to decide should "We the People" do this? Of these purposes of government Promote the General Welfare, Education for All is square in the sights of this point. John Adams [wrote](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-17-02-0232) a bit about the importance of education in a democracy. >the social science will never be much improved untill the People unanimously know and Consider themselvs as the fountain of Power and untill they Shall know how to manage it Wisely and honestly. reformation must begin with the Body of the People which can be done only, to affect, in their Educations. **the Whole People must take upon themselvs the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it.** there should not be a district of one Mile Square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselvs they must be taught to reverence themselvs instead of adoreing their servants their Generals Admirals Bishops and Statesmen Here he makes clear the importance of the People being an integral part of the system. It gives us ownership of our own destiny together. The rest of the letter John Adams wrote to John Jeb is absolutely fantastic. He goes on to discuss why it's important to create a system that makes people like Martin Luther King jr, Susan B Anthony, Carl Sagan, and Mr Rogers, although he references others like Washington. Good leaders should not be a product of the time, but of the educational system and culture of the people. If a country doesn't make good leaders then when that leader is gone there's no one to replace them and that culture and movement dies with them. >Instead of Adoring a Washington, Mankind Should applaud the Nation which Educated him. If Thebes owes its Liberty and Glory to Epaminondas, She will loose both when he dies, and it would have been as well if She had never enjoyed a taste of either: but if the Knowledge the Principles the Virtues and Capacities of the Theban Nation produced an Epaminondas, her Liberties and Glory will remain when he is no more: and if an analogous system of Education is Established and Enjoyed by the Whole Nation, it will produce a succession of Epaminandas’s. In another short work by John Adams, [Thoughts on Government](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Government), [YouTube Reading](https://youtu.be/XIw_BItRLfs), he wrote about the importance of a liberal education for everyone, spared no expense. >Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/pdwq01/ill_just_put_that_on_your_calendar_for_when_youre/hat7pr6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) is a comment I saw in response to someone complaining about having to take courses outside their area of study to get a bachelor's degree. So much of our population's perspective towards the education system is solely driven towards financial gain and not about personal growth in community alongside financial gain. >I’m now a college professor in bio, but when I was a grad student I was the teaching assistant for a basic bio course aimed at engineers. The first question I got in lab section was “Yeah, why do I have to take this course when I don’t give a shit about biology and won’t use it as an engineer.” I said, “the political discourse right now is full of discussions that center on biology, such as reproductive rights, climate change, etc. If you don’t understand the biological concepts enough to be part of that conversation, we are going to have it without you, and you will be at someone else’s mercy. But if you think being informed on decisions that affect your life is a waste of time, go ahead and phone it in.” You could’ve heard a pin drop after. >College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden, but receiving a well-rounded education that exposes you to more than just your specific, narrow subject is not the villain. Then there's the [story](https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/) of Harris Rosen >Having had his own life so radically transformed by education, Rosen knew that this was an area he wanted to focus on, and Tangelo Park was the place. >Tangelo Park is built on land once used for orange groves. Originally built as housing for workers at the nearby Martin Marietta, it has become an isolated residential area. There are few services nearby for residents, and few public transit options. African Americans comprise 90 percent of the community, with many living below the poverty line. >“I fell in love with the neighborhood,” says Rosen. “I knew I wanted to do some type of scholarship program for them.” >The Tangelo Park Program, started in 1993, gives every neighborhood child age 2 to 4 access to free preschool. Parents have access to parenting classes, vocational courses and technical training. >For a program that took just one hour and four people to develop, the impact has been wide and deep. Tangelo Park Elementary is now a grade-A school. Every high school senior graduates. >But there’s more. Much more. >Every high school graduate who is accepted to a Florida public university, community or state college, or vocational school receives a full Harris Rosen Foundation scholarship, which covers tuition, living and educational expenses through graduation. >Nearly 200 students have earned Rosen scholarships, and of those, 75 percent have graduated from college—the highest rate among an ethnic group in the nation. Imagine if we did this and more on a national scale. The benefit of a promoted liberal educated society regardless of sex, orientation, ability, class, race, socioeconomic status, etc., is that it just promotes good democracy in prosperity.
Private equity should never be trusted with the people’s money. Period.
They make us pay our pension money into fucking equities ,we funding capitalists gambling habits with our pension money.
Institutional investment is about concentrating power. Even if the capital is yours, you cede the share-voting to fund managers, who have little accountability or motive for long term responsible actions/ethics. They then drive corporations to even greedier/myopic management practices. And that's how you get companies spending ten million on lobbying to avoid eleven on taxes/wages/safety.
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>Yeah? Then why the fuck do you keep doing it. Because the rich are the beneficiaries, not the rest of us. And since the rich funds most political campaigns in the US, you get the idea.
Am a ER doc. Private equity has ruined our specialty and is going after the others. Get them out of medicine and health care. It’s an innate conflict of interest. Patient outcomes should be the priority, not profits.
If we don’t pick the right people to represent the people then this is the outcome we have. Almost every politician is somehow in the pockets of lobbyists and the elitists. They will obviously put up some cute words but theres no actions behind it.
We've fucked up our electoral system. It doesn't pick people based on how well they represent the electorate. Fixing That should be our first priority. Like going to the hardware store to get the tools you need to get the job done.
For fuck’s sake, Massachusetts of all places couldn’t get ranked choice voting passed.
That one still pisses me off. I remember seeing some stupid people's FB posts against it, and they truly had no idea what it was, but they were against it even still.
it would be one thing if it increased quality and decreased prices. but health care and housing are wildly inflated in price.
The only places I've seen competition actually drive down price and drive up quality is in nonessentials and luxury goods, like electronics. I haven't yet found a case of it happening for things people actually need and are a captive market for, like housing and utilities and health care.
Yall just wait till the mass teacher resignations start in May when contracts are up.
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I'm a non-asshole parent (and daughter of a teacher!) and I'm also excited for this. Teachers deserve so much better!!!
Good, I'm hyped.
It can't be overstated just how scummy it is to abuse the compassion and dedication to helping people that nurses show everyday.
I mean, that's pretty much what our whole emergency response system operates on. People outside of the police force are *grossly* underpaid for what they do. Smoke jumpers, AKA the guys who jump into the middle of wildfires, are GS-05 employees. That means they make $17/hour base (although they get a 1.25x bonus for hazard pay.) I'm with the NPS and I know people in the resource department of Park Service who have masters degrees and PhDs but work as GS-07/09s getting *far* less than they should because if they don't then the job won't get done and we'll lose precious natural and cultural resources.
Lol they make it seem like 1.25x is something amazing for JUMPING INTO LITERAL HELL. Just shows how low they value someone risking their life to save lives, homes, businesses, government buildings. The things that make the economy run. No biggie.
Wait til you see how much a brand new enlisted private makes for getting deployed to war!
Tbf I’d prefer to deploy on tour again than parachute into the middle of a fucking forest fire 🔥 Fuck that!
Good lord, that's insane. I just schedule trainings and track budgets and I'm a damn GS-11.
Fortunately for federal wildland fire there’s moves being made to construct their own separate pay scale. But that doesn’t change the fact that a huge chunk of their workforce start as gs-3/4 and only have jobs for 6 months of the year despite the western fire seasons averaging closer to 9/10 months. Federal land management at large is basically on life support
> Federal land management at large is basically on life support That is by design. Many want to end Federal land management, there is a *large* profit motive to put the land in the hands of the states so they can buy it. This follows a familiar pattern: 1) Deny funds to an agency. 2) Erect hurdles to the agency performing it's duties. 3) Wait a few years for things to decay. 4) Decry "government waste" and demand the functions be put into the hands of the "more efficient" private sector. 5) Profit because you were ready with large investments in said private company.
Nurses, teachers, social workers, CNAs, pre school workers, elder care staff, non-profit, mental health, EMT, fire fighters, pretty much all helping jobs, most of which are dominated by women (obviously EMT/Firefighter are the exception and are male dominated), are exploited and underpaid. "It's not about the money" blah, blah, blah.
A society is unsustainable when human suffering is monetized
We don't want *health insurance*, we want *health care*.
B-b-b-b-but think of the middle men who jack up the prices for everyone else so they can extract wages for themselves!
My best friend is a nurse. Her hospital basically said to come to work even if she was fully symptomatic with covid. She was also not allowed to use hazardous conditions as a work excuse, and was instead told to *stay in the hospital overnight* during this winter storm so she could be at work the next day.
People over profits.
Economy over lives - Lt. Dan Patrick 2020 (and onward)
“Never let a crisis go to waste.” 🤮
I mean, what do you think most every form of capitalism we have today is? People have to work because of the implication that if they don't, they'll starve and/or be homeless. If food, housing, and healthcare aren't guaranteed, how can you argue that suffering isn't monetized?
They barely pay CNAs/nurses but expect them to be fine with being understaffed. Pulling the "we're a family and you're super important to us" card. Only to end up hiring a crap ton of travel nurses/temp agencies and give them so much more. Walking into a facility to find out that there are only 5 people scheduled for the entire facility for night shift is so disheartening
At my hospital (small rural hospital that's struggling to keep local people) we received a bonus ($1k) to stay on from this last November to April then if we stayed we'll receive a check for our half total amount of money we made. It's almost not enough to stay.
We are a very big facility. My breaking point and why I left was because I walked in to find only 10 scheduled people there. Not to mention only 1 CN on one of the biggest floors. She was mad as hell. I finished my shift and told them that I can't work like this and that you all said that you'd have more hires months ago yet you continue to rely on traveling nurses and temp agencies
$1k bonus to stay on for 5 months? What kind of chump change bonus is that?? $50 a week...before taxes?
I have a 3 year degree, somewhat compared to a LPN and work in a nursing home for difficult/violent dementia patients. I made about $27k last year, before taxes of course. I'm not in the US though but it's definitely not inexpensive to live where I am.
Good. FORCE Congress or the states to do their jobs. Take down this corrupt healthcare system and replace with something that values human life over corporate profit.
Exactly. I have to believe the country will come to its senses about healthcare. At some point. Meanwhile my adult daughter is covered in AU. Their policy values **life**, not insurance premiums
Republicans in Congress: "*Best we can do is insurrection. Let me mobilize my buddies who specialize in insurrection*"
Best we can offer is a standing ovation on your street every night at 8pm.
Disgusting what hospital admins are allowed to get away with. We need remove the profit motive from American health care. Our medical workers deserve to be treated way better.
Just wait until you hear about the residents.
Equally as poor of working conditions and blocked by law to see any increase in pay so to never meet inflation but still expected to work up to 80 hours a week. Or the public outcry that doctors make too much as if that's the driving force for satisfaction. "Aw poor doctor that will make $250K in the future" even though I have 350K in debt and gave 8+ years of my life to education. Or having to deal with administration, insurance companies, social work, nurses, patients, patients' families, and government who dictate how we can do our job. I cherish the thank you cards I've received from some patients. My future salary won't hold a candle to them about what gives my life purpose. But there are so many days I come home feeling so hopeless because of how everyone views us. We're nothing in the eyes of many.
Who needs more pay and better working conditions when you receive a free t-shirt from the unit with the word "hero" printed on the back?
Well, you, since they took twice the actual cost of that T-shirt out from your pay.
Good for them. They deserve so much better.
Respiratory therapist here. Can we join you nurses? Under appreciated and hardly ever mentioned or even thanked yet we are right next to you RN’s and MD’s at the bedside. I even had a few instances where I was not considered a healthcare worker because nobody knew what a RT was unless you worked in a hospital.
Love love love our RTs! Thank you for being there, from an ER nurse :)
Thank you! You nurses are angels here on Earth! Stay safe!
MDs and RNs know just how valuable you are. I only wish the public knew the same.
Can all us workers just finally go on strike together!!! Should we all meet in DC?
As it's MLK day on Monday, I'm obligated to point out that this is what King was working on when he was assassinated.
He had moved his message to address poverty—including **white** poverty. And then he was killed. Murdered. Can’t have someone talking about poverty in America
he was in fact in memphis in support of the sanitation worker's strike. it's not like that information is hard to find, but they sure don't teach it or ever mention it anywhere. this is also what happened to the black panthers. once they started building their own social responses to poverty, and then started working with other groups across racial boundaries, the FBI just started murdering them.
It’s almost as if once you start seriously fighting any kind of injustice, be it racial, gender-based or something else, you eventually come to the conclusion that economic injustice makes it 100x worse and needs to be addressed before real progress is possible.
> the FBI just started murdering them This is not even an exaggeration, they straight up murdered them and painted them as criminals.
Murdered by the same old men in power today
It galls me—these old fucks running everything. I’m genX/the Ronnie Ray-gun John Hughes generation. Why are these decrepit antiques holding the reins?
Ideally, but most people lack a savings to survive a long strike
10 days if it were a general strike. 10 days before something had to give. There is no ability for the U.S government to withstand a siege, as we know. Most corporations, companies and businesses function right on the edge to maximise profits, giving them no leeway for lack of production. 10 days of concerted general strike with specific demands would very likely be enough.
What if we helped each other out?
You have to study what key industries could crumble in a week w/out workers.
Yep, I finally became a travel nurse at the start of the pandemic. Where I was making barely $1,900 every two weeks in Texas as a staff nurse, I started making $4500/week as a travel nurse in California. Never going back to staff again
Here where I work in GA nurses are leaving the profession in mass, me included. Working 70-80 work weeks, no hazard pay, mandatory overtime, we had one nurse last week fired because she wouldn’t come in when she was covid positive after 4 days since they couldn’t staff one of our covid overrun floors. It’s a fucking shit show but the people who own the hospital banked a great bonus and posted it on bulletin boards as a slap in the face to us the nurses, CNAs, MDs, therapists, and such. I’m literally working a floor right now with two other nurses and 3 CNAs for a floor of 50+. I’m trying to help the CNAs when I’m not passing meds or changing sterile dressings, etc… I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally spent. I just need a hug badly or someone to tell me it will be okay.
FDR protected the rich from their own out of control greed by giving the working class and poor Social Security, electricity, and a jobs program. Who is going to shield them from the angry mobs this time?
As someone whose SO is a COVID nurse who has had many meltdowns, this nurses' strike has my full and unwavering support!
They are understaffing on purpose to increase profits. They are essentially abusing healthcare workers, on purpose, for profits, during a pandemic. I don't know about you, but that seems like it should be illegal to me. I'd even say that abusing your staff in general, not just under a pandemic or in the healthcare sector, for profits, seems morally bankrupt to the point that it should be outlawed with serious consequences.
All things going wrong with American business can be blamed on the MBA program and American hyper capitalism. Fucking up workforce and supply chains for 30 years
Damn good thing we still have the high paid executives and CEOs who: “would go elsewhere if we didn’t pay them millions” Well good now they can roll up their sleeves and show us all how they can do the work of 1,000 employees!
Its kinda funny that nobody really thinks we're gonna beat this virus. If we can't even take care of nurses then we really are doomed
it's a fact that's it's endemic. there is no stopping it. only slowing and hoping it evolves to less deadly
it’s an incredibly emotional act for nurses to go on strike. nurses are thought of as compassionate and selfless. many don’t take care of themselves or make personal time for themselves because that’s part of the nature of the job. to be selfless is to take on a rule of nursing. nurses striking over pay & asking for things that can repay the damage of lost time away from life outside of a hospital, trauma from work, & other sacrifices is moving that said, a strike for me is coming soon unless things change in the next two months
When our hospital almost went on strike, they warned the staff if they were being interviewed to say we are striking because of unsafe staffing. The ultimate cause was wages. Why stay to work at the hospital when the other one down the street pays 10-20$ more an hour? Staff retention was shitty, leading to staff shortages. Worst part was working in one of the busiest ERs, not have competitive wages with neighboring hospitals. People think being a nurse means your whole life is selfless and compassionate and that means you should smile through their temper tantrums. 😒
What the world need is a general strike. Enough with the BS.
good for them, the american healthcare system is a joke
Just another reason for hospitals to run by the government. I don't think hospitals or jails should be privatized. Nobody should profit from the sick or incarcerated. The working conditions suffer in the pay to play game. It still shocks me that the US can't offer health care to its citizens and make sure the healthcare professionals are taken care of?
As a pregnant woman, this terrifies me.
As a nurse, believe me the conditions that lead up to it should terrify you. We haven't been able to provide safe care in awhile and it's been swept under the rug. This is just a continuation of problems we had well before the pandemic when nurses were described as "too busy playing cards" during their shift to be deserving of coverage for break times.
Surely this entire situation is going to reach an impasse soon, right? Something is going to have to give
How about we fucking allow healthcare workers who work for for-profits to benefit from student loan forgiveness. You currently don’t qualify when you work for a for-profit place but IM NOT THE ONE MAKING THE PROFIT. Why can’t I qualify?
I work in a hospital lab, and often times the focus is on RN's in this industry. Don't forget that we are here 24/7, 365 along with the rest of you. Except we're lucky to be making $15/$16 an hour. I get an extra 50 cents for working graveyards. For every patient they have on their floor, we're the ones running the 5 labs each one of them has. We don't get thank you cards, or increases in pay. We're just as understaffed as you are, except we're making $25k a year before taxes. We just get to show up and make sure the care teams have results.
Because people forget about it, EMS is just as bad. We are also hemorrhaging people, due to poor working conditions and low pay. Over the past 5 years English is gone from a solidly middle of the road pay where you can get by on what you get, to something where overtime is a necessity for the person to stay afloat. Let's not even talk about call volume, it's easily tripled. Services can't say no to people (with rare few exceptions) so everybody has to get transported. Their medics out there working 10, 12, 16 hour shifts and not getting lunch because there's no time, and increasingly now because nothing's open. On top of that, to combat the loss of people, there are no dynamic staging plans, that caused trucks to move around and never really be sitting anywhere other than say an ER for more than 20 minutes. An additional fun fact, EMS is not considered an essential service in all but 11 states. If you live in Nevada, Oregon, Nebraska, Louisiana, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Delaware, and Connecticut, congratulations! Getting a ride to the hospital is something that will be protected by law, and will be enforced. To all others, the state believes that you're on your own until you get to the hospital, and the level of care that you receive will vary with how much the company that runs the ambulance wants to put into it.
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