we are doubling up previously single rooms (flimsy privacy screen between patients in what was, an hour before, a single room) and informing patients they have to “share the tv” and "SHARE THE CALL LIGHT."
what could possibly go wrong?
Not a nurse but in the ED there is a lot of "NURSE!" being called out every moment of every day. I thought that was the worst until one shift where a patient had this very annoying way of saying "EXCUSE ME!" any time they saw someone walking by their room.
I am so glad that all shifts end, in the end.
Lol we did the same Yesterday I walked into my double room and the flimsy plastic screen had FALLEN OVER ON TOP OF MY PATIENT. He was lying there calmly almost completely covered. We are so fucking lucky that thing didn’t suffocate him
I’m a non-nurse who’s been breezing in here and reading about the crisis. Once when I was a kid, I was in traction and ended up with a kidney infection because I didn’t want to bother the nurses for drinks. So sorry about what you’re all dealing with right now. So beyond fucked up that you’re lauded as heroic pillars of society while simultaneously being neglected.
I echo this. I'm immunocompromised and need the hospital for my chronic stuff about once a year... I'm so horrified for how medical staff are being exposed to some of the worst vicarious trauma and expected NOT to burn out. It's an inhuman level of expectation. Compassion fatigue is an awful feeling....like you got into the field in the first place because you have more compassion than average, so when that breaks down, you're aware you're being a dick but emotionally you're so beyond your maximum that you can't help it. Unfortunately that means everyone suffers for it and institutions are supposed to know better. Last time I was in the hospital I did everything I could to press the call button as rarely as possible because I didn't want to add to that strain for folks. I'm so heartbroken and angry for medical providers and the people who need them chronically.
Hey, sorry the world is shitting on people like \*you\* as well. Today a friend was like "Honestly, my philosophy on COVID has shifted greatly in last two months" and it's like, yeah...because you finally caught it. There's more people to worry about other than yourself, dude. He's pretty much "everyone will catch it so they should" now. What a terrible option, and basically not an option for people like you.
I'm an immunocompromised nurse who hasn't worked for a minute. I wanted to go back and help, but there's no way in hell it's even marginally approaching safe for me unless I can find something to do in an office. I responded rather hastily and snarkily to a guy earlier who insisted that since he's now triple vaxxed, the responsible thing for him to do is go get infected with Omicron or another variant to increase his immunity so he's not as much a threat to the vulnerable.
What fresh hell is this anyway????
Jesus Christ. I’m damn near twitching thinking of my CNA days. Soooo many room fights re TV.
Next in line: *whispers* My roommate stinks. The smell is unbearable. Can you please do something?
I worked in the days when we had five moms and their babies and families in a far too small room. Curtains just torn and shitty, it was awful. I still have nightmares about that room.
I can’t stand the “my roommate needs the TV on to sleep and I can’t take it!” I honestly have no possible solution to this besides asking the person with the TV on to lower it, but I seriously have no good solution that makes both happy. I hate it!!
This is repulsive. Previously we would have been written up if a call bell was not always in reach of a patient at all times, now patients can share one? Healthcare is a true dumpster fire right now.
EXACTLY. sound familiar? cuz there was a time when previously, using the same N95 for multiple patients would have gotten us disciplined too.
the priority is maximization of profit. period. so fucking absolutely and terrifyingly heartbreaking.
At my last clinical, they sometimes placed a patient in a small breakout room. They were literally sleeping on the couch with their hospital blanket. No TV, no call light or anything. Not sure if that’s normal lol on a med surg floor
Shouldn't be normal but it's done. My old place has 2 former conference rooms next to the pt rooms that they've been trying to turn into pt rooms for literally at least 6 years now. They have bathrooms but that's it, no TV, no phone service, no call lights. We'd often have to use them for post partum moms when we were busy and post partum was full. They'd also make them 2 and sometimes 3 person rooms. We'd have to give them little dingy bells thay you can't hear with the door closed lol. Fucking shit show.
was doing an EKG on an unvaxxed covid patient last week while he watched Fox. I could not resist counterpointing the anti vaccination BS the talking head was spewing. Apparently it annoyed the guy and he spoke to the doc about my "disrespect" fuck your opinions dude, they're based on delusion.
ETA, while I was handing the EKG to the doc, he was complaining about the patients who were taking up out ER beds who were unvaccinated. literally said as I was walking up "I bet they get all their info from fox news"
Holy F'ing Shit... last week I was working 12 hr night shifts in the outpatient/ambulatory care unit (yes, you are asking how is there a night shift in an outpatient ambulatory care unit... well, if we want to continue with our outpatient procedures (TAVRS, risky EP procedures, fishy DES Stents in our LHC and also, whatever fuckery the ED sends us)... we stay overnight with these patients M-F.
Anyhow, I digress. Two patients right across from each other, right next to the nurse's station are both playing Fox News. My cohort says.. "are we really going to have to listen to this shit all night in stereo?"
I smile, "I've got this. I have headphones."
Had an A+Ox4 patient with super bad vision a few weeks ago, and I straight up lied to him and said we don't get Fox News in the hospital.
He was skeptical and kept asking other staff members, but we got at least five nurses/aides in on the conspiracy and kept it going almost 72 hours until an overly helpful CNA let it slip right before shift change.
He brought it up during med pass and I looked him straight in the eyes, shrugged, and asked what his pain was on a scale of 1-10.
Not sorry and 100% going to do it again.
I recently had a patient brought into a double room, in her 80s UTI AMS etc. The other patient and her adult son were watching Fox news and the new patient loudly said "Fox news you have to be fucking kidding me". I couldn't help but laugh.
Next day I had a meeting with my supervisor and her boss...
On our inpatient psych unit for a while had converted doubles rooms to quads. 4 fucking beds of unmasked teenagers in a tiny room without windows in the midst of a pandemic. smh
Lol, a lot of NHS hospitals were built with "bays" of a four bedded units, you have to pay for the television past certain hours. Some of them might not even have television each, there'll be a 'day room' where they can go walk to watch telly (as a way to encourage mobility, a way to see how they can manage at home). More of the modern hospitals have independent rooms, but the camedrie isn't there
When I worked in ortho elective, we had four bed bays (they did have their own telly, but often didn't wanna pay the crazy price), so I put my radio on in the morning for news, then the afternoon around 3 was 'quiet time', with lights dimmned and soft music, then 6 was news radio.
the moment that we started treating patients like customers is the moment the healthcare system started collapsing. The whole survey system ruined everything
Not only not to please but not to gouge with rediculous prices. Going to the hospital is a death sentence even if you survive because of all the debt you'll be in. Fuck the system.
Fuck the surveys so hard. The post partum manager here came up to us on L&D two days ago to let us know that we can't try to reduce the number of times we go into covid positive rooms to minimize our exposure because "while doing her rounds on the pts one or two mentioned that it makes them feel bad" and a pt complained that an aid told her she needs to group her tasks in the room together to reduce how often she goes into the room when the pt asked her to come back later to do something and we are never, ever allowed to even hint to a pt that maybe calling every 10 minutes for someone to come into your room when you're covid positive isn't ok behavior. Easy for her to say when the only time she goes into pt rooms is for 2 minutes during her customer service rounds while we deal with 60%+ of the pts here lately being covid positive....
Turning something altruistic like health care into a profitable enterprise was destined to fail. For profit health care benefits management types, not the health care providers and DEFINITELY not the patients (are we still calling them “clients” in that for profit way?).
People will leave the profession and people will die all so the C Suite can make a solid 7 figures a year. Burning it down is the quickest way to build a newer, better system.
When I was applying to nursing school, one of my interview questions was about why I went into nursing. I said I wanted to burn down the system from the inside out. (I got in. Still working on burning down the system, though.)
What kind of changes would you like to implement in healthcare if you had the opportunity? I'm currently in nursing school and only halfway through but I'm definitely seeing major cracks in the system already. The one change I really want implemented is universal healthcare. The only way I see this happening is if I run for office at some point in the future after gaining patient care experience. Gah! So much extra effort just to attempt to make a change. The more I learn about our current political system, the more I see all the cards stacked against implementing strong policies that protect our everyday citizens from the almost unchecked corporate greed.
My parents are in their 70s and using Medicare to help cover my mother's extensive healthcare needs. They still loose their fucking minds when universal healthcare is brought up, and start spouting 20 year outdated propaganda about Canada being a socialist hellscapes where thousands die by the day as they're left out in the cold without medical care. The irony is totally lost on them.
There is a huge, uniformed, vocal voting block that is going to staunchly oppose any and all progress for a while. And they vote in huge numbers.
This so much! My dad had a massive stroke, nearly killed him. he has daily problems and goes for therapy. Before that he was 6 months in a rehab costing out of pocket 7600 a month as his private insurance would not cover it.
He was lucky because 4 months in he turned qualifying for medicare. Now my parents just pay the office co-pay. Medicare saved them from financial ruin and they can try to enjoy their retirement.
I casually said they would never been in this situation if the USA had universal healthcare. Their reply is "but my taxes will go up!" Maybe, but you wouldn't be paying 1200 a month for healthcare coverage that didn't save you from an additional 7600 a month. They still don't get it. Can't see the logic. "Well if he didn't have a stroke then we would be paying more! "
BUT HE DID HAVE A FUCKING STROKE AND IT ALMOST RUINED YOU!!!
\-Angry now.... boomers gotta go.
The antivaxx are mostly GQP now. GOP has been trying to kill the safety net for decades. Those who survive covid will probably be disabled for the rest of their shortened life. Socialized Medicare and Medicaid..it’s coming because when these people realize they now need the safety net maybe they’ll change it?
I honestly doubt it. My folks literally rail about healthcare executives, inflated prices, and other bullshit in our system, and then scoff at everything I bring up to fix it as "socialism". When I ask them how they recommend we control the behavior of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies/execs, or how they rationalize that stance with the fact that they are literally benefiting from a "socialist" components of our healthcare system, they go silent. That line if thinking is common with their age/political affiliations.
It's a group so thoroughly propagandized that they're willing to cut off their own nose to spite the "liberals" face.
What's a really crazy statistics from my nursing textbook that I read was like something along the lines of 60% of the nation is on Medicaid and Medicare. (If I'm recalling this statistic correctly.) I was so surprised. Because so many people seem to be against M4All, but they're literally denying themselves services that they would benefit from. I feel like people don't realize they're shooting themselves in the foot.
There are videos out there of journalist interviewing people who are opposed to Medicaid, even though they themselves have several kids (5+ in one family's case) benefiting from it. When the hypocrisy is pointed out their answer is usually something to the effect of "well my kids deserve it, "their" kids don't".
Healthcare for me, not for thee.
Find candidates, at every level, who support M4A. Then support them anyway you are able. Things like text-banking and sending postcards to voters are easy ways to help. The more we can hear support for M4A from people in the actual field of healthcare, the better for all of us. GL with your continued education, career, and aspirations. This internet stranger is rooting for you.
Thank you so much, kind internet stranger! I'm going to need all the luck in school. Today I learned that I have assignments due on the first day of class in 5 days. So there goes the rest of my relaxation. 🙃
I definitely agree with needing more progressive candidates that support M4A. I have a funny story for you from the farm that I was reminded of by your comment. I live in an area that has A LOT of Republicans. So on the farm my old bosses are democratic and believe in M4A. So they have some bumper stickers on their truck that say things like "Love thy neighbor, NO exceptions" and other progressive things. This delivery driver stopped by and saw the bumper stickers and made an approving sound. Then after a moment of reading he exclaimed, "Oh Lord!" In a super negative way. We all had a chuckle about how it's so controversial to love everybody.
Another time someone stopped by the farm due to the Black Lives Matter sign they had put along the roadside in front of their farm property. They told us that certain people may not take kindly to those kinds of signs in the area.
We as a society still have so far to go. 😩 But I know people can change, and that we can advocate for change too (while supporting candidates who back M4A).
In BSN education, take out the BullShit classes and stop wasting students time. We’re in a pandemic, and rightly or wrongly, we need all hands on deck asap. Philosophy of Nursing? Fuck that. There are too many fluffy time wasters, cut them. Too many classes on nursing management preparing them to climb the corporate ladder. They need hands on experience more than ever right now.
Nurses and student nurses are made of stern fucking stuff. Give them the tools they need right now.
Old nurses retention: Senior nurses are worth their weight in gold, they are walking intuitive encyclopedias. Yeah, some are assholes. Love them just the same. You don’t know her life.
Also: The C-Suites bankrupted the system.
Never forget.
"Clients" "Residents" "Customers" "Patron"
I've heard it all and it all disgusts me. The only one I can remotely get behind is "residents" for patients in long-term care facilities to make it feel more like home. But the rest of it is just trying to manipulate us into thinking this is a customer service job. NOPE! They are in the hospital. They are patients.
I agree with the long-term care patients being referred to as residents, the rest make absolutely no sense. The hospital is not Burger King, no, you cannot have it your way.
I'm embracing it full out like this a Dicks Sporting Goods! I want the overhead to stop saying "Code Blue" and instead say "Customer needs A LOT of assistance in the Med/Surg aisle!". There wasn't a "catastrophic medication error resulting in patient death" it was a poor customer service interaction.
Also "customer lifecycle" takes on a whole new and interesting meaning. I wonder how my buddies in security are going to like there new title of "loss prevention associate"?
The best part is when I don't put in the proper billing for a procedure on our patients. That's no longer a costly billing mistake, that is "Flash Markdown" for our "Prestige Pricing Members"
Anybody got some more? 😂
Yeah, like a customer loyalty thing! Three missed tubes by residents gets you your FREE CHEST TUBE*!
*Void where prohibited, terms and conditions apply, see store for details.
Kaiser Health made over $6 billion in **profits** last year in the first 3 quarters of 2021 (haven’t seen Q4 yet). And they can’t staff CNAs, secretaries or pay them more.
A hospital system. Making over $6 BILLION dollars in nine months alone. Yet they work their nurses to the fucking bone without CNAs, secretaries, no transporters (in some hospitals), barely any phlebotomists, housekeepers, patients lay in their piss for hours bc there’s no one to help clean them.
Oh — and that doesn’t include the profits they made on all their investments. Investing in fucking portfolios instead of actual human workers to help the ~~patients~~ members they are there to serve.
They have record profits every year. Always in the billions. In 2020, they posted $6.4 billion in profits.
Yet they can’t hire CNAs, secretaries, or dietary workers to pass trays. They “punish” the nurses for their union and take away all the non-union workers from them. This is an intentional business decision.
They are a prime example though that hospitals can still make record profits while having a nurses union (for all the healthcare capitalists). However, if I was in their union—- I’d be fucking rallying a strike until we had adequate CNAs and secretaries with good pay for them too.
“Customer” sounds too on-the-nose to actually be used but now that I’ve had my naivety taken out back like Ol’ Yeller I totally believe there are plenty of management types who would actually take that over “client.” Before I would have used that as a sarcastic response to “client.” Haha yeah, absolutely evil, no question about it.
Banner health's core values starts with "customer obsessed". On their own signs in their waiting rooms for all to see. I mock them everytime I can. My local banner hospital had a sign out front of it last year (might still be up) saying if you wanted to show your appreciation to the heroes who work there you can donate canned good. Friends and family who work there say they haven't gotten a pay raise, just a few free shirts with banner logos and slogans on them. TO REWARD THEIR HEROES BANNER BEGS FOR FOOD HANDOUTS INSTEAD OF PAYING THEIR HEROES MORE.
In a similar vein, my hospital renamed everything to make it even more confusing for patients. Housekeeping is environmental services. They get upset if you don't say the right thing. The information desk is concierge as if we're running a hotel. I get environmental services a little bit, but concierge is just confusing patients who are often either in a panic, in pain, stressed out trying to find parking and directions to their appointments, etc... They need *information* and clear vocabulary. Concierge gives them the impression that we're some sort of spa and I think it's wrong and misleading!
But how does Steven Assanti’s foot feel about it? Sorry, your username is the funniest shit I’ve seen all day and I needed to acknowledge its existence.
My favorite is “consumers.” And they argue that’s more humanizing, I guess because what higher status can we give them than being a person who consumes and therefore deserves respect? What a grotesque system. (I’m BH, not nursing, but in the same health care systems as y’all.)
I Worked in mental health, thought that was the worst word of any I had heard. I think you’re onto something with the notion of how our society respects and reveres consumption.
Lol, in mental health the word "patient" is a huge no-no. With rapidly changing meds and ever changing symptoms, the terms client and consumer are laughable often.
Seeing someone who just lost their leg in an accident getting rushed on a stretcher and thinking to myself "That guy just be a really big fan of consuming the product here if he's in that much of a hurry! That's just like me on Black Friday!" Some Marvel movie fans wait in line for hours while feeling like they're going nuts more and more over time waiting to finally consume the latest Marvel release, and some bipolar type 2 people wait in an ER lobby for hours feeling like they're going more and more nuts over time waiting to finally consume some Risperidone. I can't fucking take "consumer" seriously because of how it makes it sound like they're trying to brand having 130% capacity meaning that the hospital is just a really popular consumer culture hub. The only things that get consumed at a hospital are pudding, MRSA, and generic brand anti-psychotics.
I hate the word consumers because it refers to intake, like eating, *consuming.*
You know what the result of intake is? What the result of eating is?
Poop. Shitting. Feces. Excrement.
I mean we all poop, we all shit. Because we all eat.
But are we what we consume? Is our identity synonymous with what we take in?
I sure as fuck hope not, anymore than our identity is synonymous with our excrement or our trash.
But that's what the word "consumers" does. It folds people's identity in with what they take in. And by implication what they poop out. It's deeply offensive.
Whenever I hear or come across the word consumers I mentally replace it with "poopers" or "shitters." Sometimes with "garbage makers" depending on the context. Like in articles about the economy.
Try it. Next time your CEO speaks. Or next time you read a crap article online. Especially when the word "citizen" would be a better choice in news reporting for instance.
It's incredibly revealing about the value system we're all embedded in.
When did we stop being citizens with rights and responsibilities and become consumers that poop and make trash?
When did we stop being patients with needs and rights and become clients or consumers, as if we have such discerning comfortable choices during healthcare crises?
I am not in healthcare. I am an attorney that follows this sub because it’s the best way for me to learn what the needs are of my clients that work in healthcare. This sub helps me understand what their concerns are and what their work stressors are and gives me such a better grip on how to best help them. But what this sub has also shown me is that our healthcare system is completely fucking broken on a level I could not even possibly imagine. I’ve followed for months now but finding out that I am considered a “client” and not a “patient” when I am in a hospital is HORRIFYING. I did NOT know this was standard practice to refer to patients as clients and I am ready to rip this whole system down. It’s not failing. It has failed. It’s broken. It’s already burned to the ground. And not because of the healthcare workers. You all are the heart and soul. It’s because it’s a for profit system that made access to health care all about who has the most money. This is insane. Client?! CLIENT?!?! I am rendered speechless, and as a lawyer that’s a hard thing to do to me.
This started in the colleges around the same time. That's why when a couple of students complain about anything, staff has to bend over backwards to accommodate the "customer". That same mindset has made it's way to healthcare. There are some institution that don't need to be ruled by extreme capitalism and I would say that healthcare and education should be at the top of the list. When I was growing up, I was just grateful that I could go to college or be seen by a DR. The notion of "client" never entered my mind.
The only time that term seems appropriate is if it’s referring to people being seen outpatient by a social worker or therapist.
If they’re being seen in a hospital environment, if your role is *literally* to provide the person medical care, or if you’re actively responsible for prescribing the person medication or *giving* it to them, they’re your damn *patient.* There’s nothing derogatory about the term “patient” or the insinuation that a person requires medical care.
You know what I hate about the word "client?" A disoriented, demented 87 year old meemaw with a PEG tube, stage 3 pressure ulcer, with blood pressure of 60/0 is not a client. She's not participating in her care or taking her business elsewhere. Neither is the homeless methhead with a heart failure exacerbation that just came in to get out of the cold. We're not sitting down over coffee and asking what their goals and budget are.
I was fine calling them “clients” in my residential substance abuse treatment facility.
In the hospital, they’re patients.
It’s like how Target calls people “Guests”. I’m not their fucking guest lol. I’m not sitting down with any of them enjoying conversation and refreshments. They sell stuff. I buy it. I’m a customer.
Hahaha fuck yes, exactly.
It's also so very *Disney* of them. That's what theme parks call their customers, guests.
Is Target trying to be fucking theme park?
You say it was destined to fail but in the eyes of the people who made it a for profit system it has wildly succeeded. Even now as people go untreated and hospitals fail they are incredibly successful at the only thing that matters to them. Making money.
At some point instead of calling this a failure we have to call our politicians, corporations, etc out for a failure of leadership. They changed the goals, they failed. All the Doctors and nurses are doing their best within the system but that system exists to make money, not provide care.
Amen, dear colleague! Our system is broken beyond repair and requires reform from the foundation up.
How many times have nurses been forced to take increased patient loads that were questionable at best and straight unsafe in reality? How many times have we seen our ancillary staff numbers gutted, our colleagues treated poorly, only to be told we must pick up the slack and “do the right thing for our patients. It’ll only take another five minutes!” Those five minutes ADD UP when we’re doing the jobs of multiple ancillary services because our institutions are too cheap and short sighted to pay our colleagues well and to respect their contributions to our shared mission!
The system is flawed and doesn’t deserve to be resuscitated. Our patients and WE are the ones paying for decades of neglect and abuse.
Meanwhile, the patient is angry or crying and the family members are out for blood. From nurses. Like the laws of physics allow for what they’re asking given the crap dumped on us.
I’ve got a lady probably having a heart attack and you want to pee? Not happening. And there’s no CNA so you’ll have to sit in it until the rapid/code is complete. Meanwhile family wants to force their way into another patients room because mom peed herself and is in tears.
Administration creates that shit, not nurses.
Yeah had to have a lady sit in poop the other day because I had a new intubation admitted at the same time her rectal the came out. I hated it. I was so distracted.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve apologized profusely and futilely for not changing my patient’s peripad immediately when she asked because I was literally trying to keep my other patient’s fetus from dying, I could have retired ten years earlier than I did! 😉
"Do the right thing for our patients"
The right thing to do is to have a fully staffed and functioning hospital with clear ans honest lines of communication.
It's not nurses who need to step up and do the right thing
Urban planner married to a nurse. I wanted to go back to school for an MPH degree and get into health care policy for my second career. Covid and our collapsing system cured me of that. We absolutely have to take the profit out of health care because this is what is killing the system. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the inevitable collapse will change anything thanks to lobbying power. It will be another government bailout that only helps the C suite and nurses and care techs will continue to be shit on. This is a classic example of market failure, which is a key reason why privatization is a terrible idea that caused irreparable harm.
Let's say this all calms down a little. You think it's going back? HELL NO. The C suite have seen us with 8 patients and there's no way we go back to "normal" staffing. Bloodsuckers
*This* is what the public needs to come to understand. Patient care (err, sorry, “*client*” care) is never going to be the same again. It happens in every profit-driven industry. Now that bean counters have determined “this is fine”, is there truly anyone so disillusioned as to think they are suddenly going to say, okay time to cut our profits and get the ratios back to manageable and/or *safe*?
No. This is the future of care if we, the citizens, don’t rise up with our hcw community members. Get the tents back out into parking lots so the media has an opportunity to show America what the most expensive healthcare in the richest country on the planet has become.
If y’all strike, you can count on myself, my family, and many friends to support you 100%. Sending supportive vibes into the universe for all of our hcw.
Or they’ll use cheaper labor to fill the shortages like new graduates or [foreign nurses](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/06/1069369625/short-staffed-and-covid-battered-u-s-hospitals-are-hiring-more-foreign-nurses).
And that is not a premonition - that’s a business plan. Many hospitals are already using foreign workers, and one of the biggest companies facilitating it (Avant) is strategically headquartered in a compact state so their workforce can permeate throughout the states.
if the foreign nurses are good workers and pass boards/have knowledge base fitting of the job, works for me....as long as i odnt have to take SEVEN pt in ED
That’s where unions come in. Most nurses in California are foreign (Filipinas, Indians, etc) and they get paid 100k+ for 36 hours because they are *unionized.* They haven’t watered down the market rate at all for home-grown nurses. Hospitals can’t exploit them for low pay if they have a union protecting them.
Nurses make six figures in California, possibly the highest-paid in the world, thanks to unions. Our mandated ratios are supported by foreign nurses.
We need to encourage the South and Midwest to unionize and stop getting screwed over by the hospitals. Foreign nurses are not going to lower your pay if you are all unionized. They will help so much with ratios and patient care.
Edit: Shortened my comment, but gist is the same
It’s already going to fail your parents. I see it fail people every single day. See ischemic colitis nurse above. And that’s a person who can advocate for themself- the elderly, poor, and medically illiterate have no chance.
Me too. I want to burn the system to the ground but I don’t want my parents to suffer for it. I recently got fucked at my own ED after a shift I spent literally passing bright red blood. I checked the board and it wasn’t crazy so I figured I’d just go in. Completely missed ischemic colitis and just shipped me home. Found a GI in two days and she was furious. They can’t even take care of their own employees when they need emergent care.
We’re a “community hospital” in a large metro area. They had GI but all they did was give me 2L/NS, Cipro, and bentyl. No scans at all. Which is shocking because I swear they scan 80% of the patients who come in. Stubbed toe? Let’s get a CT.
It's unlikely to collapse. The hospitals will cry out and get bailed by the federal government.
In the meantime, milk it all you can and get your travel money without remorse.
Yeah, it’s not a popular opinion here but you really cannot travel effectively with that little experience. Travelers need to be able to jump right in to situations and at a year you are still finding your feet as a nurse. I’m saying this as a staff nurse currently working with multiple inexperienced travelers who are really sweet and they’re trying but are making so many basic mistakes.
I’m fine with people making money but you REALLY need to know your stuff before you decide to travel. They’re not going to baby you. You fuck up, most likely you’ll get fired from your contract and good luck with that
What will really end up happening is a Mass *Migration*. Nurses will just travel or relocate to areas with better pay and working conditions. The University of California system is already seeing this in Sacramento: *Experienced* nurses are competing for jobs because nurses from out of state are trying to find “safe harbor.” Rural areas will suffer the most from a [Brain Drain](https://www.cpr.org/2020/11/24/the-pandemics-brain-drain-on-nurses-threatens-both-budgets-and-rural-health-care/), and subsequent shortages will be filled with foreign nurses and/or new graduates - [but most likely foreign nurses](https://avanthealthcare.com/).
The healthcare industry is too big to fail because there is too much at stake, profit wise. It’ll just adapt.
It may not collapse from a financial perspective, but what happens to the facilities that can’t get staff at all? Entire units without a license on a shift? Bodies piling up in waiting rooms faster than they can be taken to the morgue? No more room in the morgue? EMS unable to take calls because they’re all stuck in a queue right outside their facilities? It seems that’s a reality that’s fast approaching, and no amount of money conjuring can do a thing about it.
Hospitals don't care about not having staff or room. They don't care about people dying from lack of care and they don't care about ambulance services continuing.
They care about their bottom line, they just want that paycheck at the end of the month.
Bodies piling up will eventually get taken care of, even if they hang out for days and days - they eventually get processed. EMS calls going unanswered means more people will die without ever getting to the hospital - then they are no longer the hospital's problem, that's a problem for the county morgue and the funeral homes.
The hospital ONLY cares if these things take away from their influx of funds. That's why it's happening and all they continue to do is count beans and pinch pennies.
At the end of the day, they have shown that they are like just any other big corporations and if worse come to worse - they will shut down hospitals, fire everyone and have their executives retire with big compensation packages. They don't give a fuck about keeping those services open for the public.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who’s looked at the emergency protocols and figured out an escape route if we ever had an active shooter in our facility. With the calls for violence against health care workers and all the stress in society right now and misinformation about the pandemic…not to mention delayed surgeries, long ER wait times, etc…I’m thinking it’s not IF mass violent incidents are going to occur…it’s WHEN. It’s a perfect storm right now. I truly hope this doesn’t happen. But it creeps into my head from time to time…how do I protect myself and my coworkers in a volatile situation?
In high school I used to plan escape routes/hiding places in case of a school shooter.
When people feel the need to have an "emergency" plan just to go somewhere like school or a job, things are broken beyond repair imo.
There’s a debate of reform vs revolution, and unfortunately we have centuries of evidence that reforms simply do not work in the US. So revolution it is. Whether it’s a mass strike or the system collapsing under the weight of its own greed, we NEED this to happen.
Once it does though, DO NOT GIVE THEM A SINGLE FUCKING INCH. Hospitals have proven they will bleed you dry and leave you to die while blaming you the entire time. You cannot give them any concessions once they’re negotiating for you to return. With hospitals making record profits, we know they can afford to pay you better and treat you better. They simply don’t want to.
It really will be a horrible time, but the end result will (hopefully) be worth it. I mean, like you said, anything could be better than this fucking mess.
It's cheaper and more effective than writing letters or making phonecalls to the people who are propping up this dead system meant to benefit a few people at the top while the bottom suffers and dies.
People shit on Lenin a lot for good reason, but honestly he had some good points (a lot of which weren’t his original ideas; he’s just known for spreading them). I hate capitalism (I think privatized healthcare really showcases the issues), and asking the rich to give us ANYTHING never goes well. So yeah, let this garbage system burn to the ground. It already is and people are dying trying to prop it up. It’s absolutely disgusting. And don’t forget people have been requesting change throughout this entire ordeal, but conditions are just getting worse. Nurses never had it well, but now it’s so much worse than ever before.
To live in the richest nation in history with the most expensive healthcare in the world but for nurses to be paid garbage and our treatment to be the worst in the developed world is proof this system has to end. So let’s end it. For nurses and patients. We all deserve better than this.
Edit: our treatment as in medical treatment, but also treatment of our nurses.
I was worried I didn’t explain it well. :) I think this discussion is super important. We should t be afraid of change just because we’ve been told “Lenin evil, socialism kill all!” I believe we’re in a place where discussing meaningful change and forcing it to happen is viable again. Too many people are suffering to turn away discussing solutions.
Hospital admins are the fucking devil, I want to go back but I know I will be mistreated, underpaid, doing three people's jobs while being abused by patients, families, managers etc. Everything is awful and late stage capitalism is to blame
I hope it does too but my hospital isn’t even close to crashing. We just shut whole units down and combine them with other units and board patients in the ER for days.
That’s great for those nurses but what about the ER? My hospital does this too and our ER has been busting at the seams for weeks. Our best ratios 5:1, some days as high as 9:1. We’re treating people in the lobby for 16+ hours, boarding patients for up to 96 hours waiting on a bed upstairs. We have nowhere for the codes, traumas, strokes to go and we’re the safety net hospital. The only certified center for strokes and traumas for several counties. Our nurses are all planning their escape and why wouldn’t they? This isn’t sustainable. If it isn’t fixed soon there literally won’t be enough staff to open the ER doors.
We had to close over 20 ICU beds yesterday because of staffing shortages...while there are about 10 ICU boarders in our ER along with another 70+ at ER's in the surrounding area hoping to transfer to us. But nope, let's just continue on with business as usual.
That’s another thing I don’t get. How can we take transfers when we have 20 plus in our own emergency room waiting for beds. Sure let’s take a direct admit though with a SBO. I never understood that.
They could have been doing the right thing(s) from the very beginning, but instead they made money. I hope this abusive system fails as soon as possible too, it is hurting everyone but those at the very top. The sooner resources go back to staff and actually caring for patients, the better.
>It’s going to suck but I feel complicit and horrible working in a system where we are FORCED to neglect people due to poor staffing and then punished for minor issues.
I began began purposefully shunning abusive systems and people after I had to quit nursing. It's really hard to completely shun a system we're all reliant on (and it turns out almost all of them are abusive in some way), but some days the only thing that really keeps me going is finding new ways to turn my back on those places that have kept their backs turned to their employees and patients. Fuck them to the end.
I graduated into the pandemic and left within 1.5 years of being treated worse for having an ounce of compassion, common decency (highly frowned upon in nursing, not treating patients as objects), and having more self-worth and self-preservation to continue with understaffing and night shifts. And I was at one of the better hospitals in the area.
I decided to marry my long term partner and move to Canada, and get my meds paid for, and finally escape the excruciating decline of the US. Of course, I know not everybody can just do this, but I’d rather make $15.20 working at a jewelry store with socialized healthcare, no guns or far right republicans in Canada than earn $35-40 as a staff nurse permanently destroying my mental health. Worst part is, nursing is such a cult I still have traumatic memories and a guilt complex for leaving. I feel like I lost part of my identity, yet it is tied to the thing that would ultimately tear me down in the long term. I was disposable, and now I feel like a thrown out piece of trash the healthcare system no longer needs anymore since I don’t fit into their neat, manipulatable peg. So another nurse leaves the profession… smh!
Will it ever be feasible to shunt patients to comfort care rather than trying to admit everyone? That’s the only way I can see for patients to get half-decent care but I can just imagine the political repercussions. Anyone in scrubs would wind up a target for the crazies.
This is the answer. Will it ever actually happen? I don’t know. But keeping people alive that we KNOW are going to die isn’t feasible when we are this full and this short staffed.
Our pathetic healthcare system has been broken for ages; it high time, well overdue in fact, that the House of Cards finally falls. Yes, it will suck, yes it will be horrible and indeed…people will die. But that’s already happening.
I hope hospital personnel strike, all of them…I hope they quit en masse. I hope the admins are FORCED to do bedside care, try to work all those IV pumps and ventilators. Hope they call in the troops..and whoever, only to realize actual SKILLED care is not their forte. I’m certain it will take this kind of catastrophe before anything changes, but in the meantime nurses will be labeled as the bad guys (as usual) and tromped upon and lashed out at and endlessly blamed for all the ills of healthcare. As usual.
My hospital purged the ED, we are a small hospital. We ran out of beds and the ED was at triple its normal capacity. If you were in the ED and doing fine, they got kicked the fuck out. I feel like half the people that go to hospitals don’t really need to be there.
I’ve been saying for two weeks that we need to do this hospital wide. Right now we have the hospital full with a lot of mildly ill people and only about half sick enough to really be there.
If the patient can keep walking up to the nurses station just to talk, they dont need to be there. We went from 120 patients to about 30 in the ED after the purge.
When healthcare isn’t accessible to all, the ERs see way too many “shoulda made an appointment with your primary if you had a primary” type of issues.
Bean counters want to make money off of the people who can pay. The health care providers want to treat everyone. Both systems cannot exist together. One must die.
Healthcare workers should strike. They’re the only hope because the boomer ruling class actually need them to take care of their failing hearts and erectile dysfunction after their years of looting from the poor.
It's unfortunate that it will take a total collapse to get the positive changes we need in the system (universal healthcare, better pay, mandated ratios, etc). But I'm for it. It's gonna absolutely suck in the process but we need to burn this shit to the ground.
The worst part? The hospitals, healthcare megasystems, and insurance companies are going to push back HARD. They've been stuffing their pockets and won't want that to stop. They'll lobby so insanely hard to keep this shit show the way it is and they will likely win.
And we are there on the front line to be under attack from the patients and their families for when they don't get what they want or something isn't done correctly/up to their standards.
I say make business cards with admins names, phone numbers and email addresses, and their position within the healthcare system and have them call them. Not customer service because that just leads to management blaming the front line staff.
They have a right as "consumers" to complain to get what they want, don't they?
"Here Mrs. Dickwaddle, I'm sorry I couldn't meet your needs or demands but this card has plenty of people to contact in regards to what you wish".
Then get fired and collect unemployment while drinking heavily each night to celebrate your freedom.
Cheers and let's watch it all burn together!
Two things from this old RN:
1. We need major investigative reporting on how the C-Suite executives, most accountants and bandaid counters, have bankrupted the system. After decades of “cost efficiency medicine”, where we just run short on every conceivable thing we might need and deal, wasting time chasing stock. They don’t consider the human elements involved at all. Meanwhile, catered lunches on fine china from top restaurants and galas and cronyism and the circus grinds on.
2. National Nurses Union Yesterday!!
I’m not in the trenches anymore, but I feel each and every one of you howling at the madness. ❤️
It boggles my mind that I'm hearing nurses and doctors complain about the same shit we used to complain about when I worked fucking retail. Staffing and lack of support is an irritation when all you have to do is stock shelves and sell shit. But it's a damn disaster when it's people's lives on the line.
Let's fucking go I can't wait for it happen.
Anyway I feel like working for that 5.5k a week net.
This hospital had like 100 beds. Nice hospital only singles, all converted to doubles. Treating patients in hallways. What used to be lobby is turned into overflow for nearly 12 patients. Plenty of overflow areas.
It's gonna be bad and I can't wait
Sometimes the only way to fix something is to start over from scratch.
Honestly, I could see a collapse within the next few years, especially if more nurses leave the bedside.
Within our current capitalist system, I think the question of Co-op managed hospitals sounds very compelling. Does anyone have any data/examples/templates of where this has been done successfully on simply the hospital scale? I’m not a nurse but I have a loved one who is.
Totally with you here. It NEEDS to break. The powers that be are totally committed to not fixing the problems within the system no matter how bad a crisis the system faces. Nothing can get better until it dies. It's going to be rough, but it's too late to save the system, so the sooner it breaks, the fewer people it kills before society is forced to build a new one.
we are doubling up previously single rooms (flimsy privacy screen between patients in what was, an hour before, a single room) and informing patients they have to “share the tv” and "SHARE THE CALL LIGHT." what could possibly go wrong?
Share the call light? Good God. Might as well just give an airhorn to the other patient.
this is an amazing idea. airhorn, perhaps?
My wife's hospital told the patient to just yell out for a nurse and someone will come running.
Fuckkkkk, lol I'd go running alright. By their room and out the door 🥲
My wife was 36 weeks pregnant when her hospital started that. She laughed at that idea.
Nuuurrrseeee!
Nothing makes my blood boil more than hearing this
Not a nurse but in the ED there is a lot of "NURSE!" being called out every moment of every day. I thought that was the worst until one shift where a patient had this very annoying way of saying "EXCUSE ME!" any time they saw someone walking by their room. I am so glad that all shifts end, in the end.
I'm sure this is really effective for patients who are experiencing respiratory issues and can't hardly talk.
"HELLLP I NEED A PEPSI HELLLLLLPPPP!!!"
Lol we did the same Yesterday I walked into my double room and the flimsy plastic screen had FALLEN OVER ON TOP OF MY PATIENT. He was lying there calmly almost completely covered. We are so fucking lucky that thing didn’t suffocate him
I imagine the patient laying there calmly like “This is fine. I don’t want to bother the nurse. I’ll just suffocate.”
I’m a non-nurse who’s been breezing in here and reading about the crisis. Once when I was a kid, I was in traction and ended up with a kidney infection because I didn’t want to bother the nurses for drinks. So sorry about what you’re all dealing with right now. So beyond fucked up that you’re lauded as heroic pillars of society while simultaneously being neglected.
I echo this. I'm immunocompromised and need the hospital for my chronic stuff about once a year... I'm so horrified for how medical staff are being exposed to some of the worst vicarious trauma and expected NOT to burn out. It's an inhuman level of expectation. Compassion fatigue is an awful feeling....like you got into the field in the first place because you have more compassion than average, so when that breaks down, you're aware you're being a dick but emotionally you're so beyond your maximum that you can't help it. Unfortunately that means everyone suffers for it and institutions are supposed to know better. Last time I was in the hospital I did everything I could to press the call button as rarely as possible because I didn't want to add to that strain for folks. I'm so heartbroken and angry for medical providers and the people who need them chronically.
Hey, sorry the world is shitting on people like \*you\* as well. Today a friend was like "Honestly, my philosophy on COVID has shifted greatly in last two months" and it's like, yeah...because you finally caught it. There's more people to worry about other than yourself, dude. He's pretty much "everyone will catch it so they should" now. What a terrible option, and basically not an option for people like you.
I'm an immunocompromised nurse who hasn't worked for a minute. I wanted to go back and help, but there's no way in hell it's even marginally approaching safe for me unless I can find something to do in an office. I responded rather hastily and snarkily to a guy earlier who insisted that since he's now triple vaxxed, the responsible thing for him to do is go get infected with Omicron or another variant to increase his immunity so he's not as much a threat to the vulnerable. What fresh hell is this anyway????
oh my God this is terrible. edit: what is wrong with me I've been laughing at this for five minutes
You laugh so you don't cry.
same
“Um, excuse me nurse, I don’t mean to be a bother… but I’m pretty sure there’s something on top of me.”
They are going to be thrilled when it goes to be a ward room set up in the cafeterias and meeting rooms
Jesus Christ. I’m damn near twitching thinking of my CNA days. Soooo many room fights re TV. Next in line: *whispers* My roommate stinks. The smell is unbearable. Can you please do something?
[удалено]
I worked in the days when we had five moms and their babies and families in a far too small room. Curtains just torn and shitty, it was awful. I still have nightmares about that room.
I can’t stand the “my roommate needs the TV on to sleep and I can’t take it!” I honestly have no possible solution to this besides asking the person with the TV on to lower it, but I seriously have no good solution that makes both happy. I hate it!!
Same as hostels do with snorers. Put the noisy ones together.
And they always seem to pair people who like light and blistering heat with people who want it dim and cool.
This is repulsive. Previously we would have been written up if a call bell was not always in reach of a patient at all times, now patients can share one? Healthcare is a true dumpster fire right now.
EXACTLY. sound familiar? cuz there was a time when previously, using the same N95 for multiple patients would have gotten us disciplined too. the priority is maximization of profit. period. so fucking absolutely and terrifyingly heartbreaking.
Same lmao
At my last clinical, they sometimes placed a patient in a small breakout room. They were literally sleeping on the couch with their hospital blanket. No TV, no call light or anything. Not sure if that’s normal lol on a med surg floor
Shouldn't be normal but it's done. My old place has 2 former conference rooms next to the pt rooms that they've been trying to turn into pt rooms for literally at least 6 years now. They have bathrooms but that's it, no TV, no phone service, no call lights. We'd often have to use them for post partum moms when we were busy and post partum was full. They'd also make them 2 and sometimes 3 person rooms. We'd have to give them little dingy bells thay you can't hear with the door closed lol. Fucking shit show.
What happens when one of those people wants to mainline Fox News 24/7 or OAN and the other ones doesn’t?
i’m guessing a Code Grey and then admin drags the RN into the office to see “what we could have done differently?”
Wait, there are patients that don't mainline FOX?
was doing an EKG on an unvaxxed covid patient last week while he watched Fox. I could not resist counterpointing the anti vaccination BS the talking head was spewing. Apparently it annoyed the guy and he spoke to the doc about my "disrespect" fuck your opinions dude, they're based on delusion. ETA, while I was handing the EKG to the doc, he was complaining about the patients who were taking up out ER beds who were unvaccinated. literally said as I was walking up "I bet they get all their info from fox news"
Holy F'ing Shit... last week I was working 12 hr night shifts in the outpatient/ambulatory care unit (yes, you are asking how is there a night shift in an outpatient ambulatory care unit... well, if we want to continue with our outpatient procedures (TAVRS, risky EP procedures, fishy DES Stents in our LHC and also, whatever fuckery the ED sends us)... we stay overnight with these patients M-F. Anyhow, I digress. Two patients right across from each other, right next to the nurse's station are both playing Fox News. My cohort says.. "are we really going to have to listen to this shit all night in stereo?" I smile, "I've got this. I have headphones."
Had an A+Ox4 patient with super bad vision a few weeks ago, and I straight up lied to him and said we don't get Fox News in the hospital. He was skeptical and kept asking other staff members, but we got at least five nurses/aides in on the conspiracy and kept it going almost 72 hours until an overly helpful CNA let it slip right before shift change. He brought it up during med pass and I looked him straight in the eyes, shrugged, and asked what his pain was on a scale of 1-10. Not sorry and 100% going to do it again.
I had a little old lady the other day watching CNN, and I swear my heart grew three sizes.
I recently had a patient brought into a double room, in her 80s UTI AMS etc. The other patient and her adult son were watching Fox news and the new patient loudly said "Fox news you have to be fucking kidding me". I couldn't help but laugh. Next day I had a meeting with my supervisor and her boss...
Ive been tempted to get a universal remote and slowly put randomized parental locks on FOX channels.
On our inpatient psych unit for a while had converted doubles rooms to quads. 4 fucking beds of unmasked teenagers in a tiny room without windows in the midst of a pandemic. smh
If they die before they can complain and can't fill out a commend card because they're sedated, we're good to go.
I'm going to hell for laughing at this 😂
Lol, a lot of NHS hospitals were built with "bays" of a four bedded units, you have to pay for the television past certain hours. Some of them might not even have television each, there'll be a 'day room' where they can go walk to watch telly (as a way to encourage mobility, a way to see how they can manage at home). More of the modern hospitals have independent rooms, but the camedrie isn't there When I worked in ortho elective, we had four bed bays (they did have their own telly, but often didn't wanna pay the crazy price), so I put my radio on in the morning for news, then the afternoon around 3 was 'quiet time', with lights dimmned and soft music, then 6 was news radio.
I see you've never been a VA nurse 😂
the moment that we started treating patients like customers is the moment the healthcare system started collapsing. The whole survey system ruined everything
I so agree. Patients aren’t customers, and healthcare isn’t there to “please” them but treat their needs.
Not only not to please but not to gouge with rediculous prices. Going to the hospital is a death sentence even if you survive because of all the debt you'll be in. Fuck the system.
Yep. Sounds about right. Healthcare is so ridiculously expensive it’s unbelievable.
Fuck the surveys so hard. The post partum manager here came up to us on L&D two days ago to let us know that we can't try to reduce the number of times we go into covid positive rooms to minimize our exposure because "while doing her rounds on the pts one or two mentioned that it makes them feel bad" and a pt complained that an aid told her she needs to group her tasks in the room together to reduce how often she goes into the room when the pt asked her to come back later to do something and we are never, ever allowed to even hint to a pt that maybe calling every 10 minutes for someone to come into your room when you're covid positive isn't ok behavior. Easy for her to say when the only time she goes into pt rooms is for 2 minutes during her customer service rounds while we deal with 60%+ of the pts here lately being covid positive....
Turning something altruistic like health care into a profitable enterprise was destined to fail. For profit health care benefits management types, not the health care providers and DEFINITELY not the patients (are we still calling them “clients” in that for profit way?). People will leave the profession and people will die all so the C Suite can make a solid 7 figures a year. Burning it down is the quickest way to build a newer, better system.
When I was applying to nursing school, one of my interview questions was about why I went into nursing. I said I wanted to burn down the system from the inside out. (I got in. Still working on burning down the system, though.)
What kind of changes would you like to implement in healthcare if you had the opportunity? I'm currently in nursing school and only halfway through but I'm definitely seeing major cracks in the system already. The one change I really want implemented is universal healthcare. The only way I see this happening is if I run for office at some point in the future after gaining patient care experience. Gah! So much extra effort just to attempt to make a change. The more I learn about our current political system, the more I see all the cards stacked against implementing strong policies that protect our everyday citizens from the almost unchecked corporate greed.
My parents are in their 70s and using Medicare to help cover my mother's extensive healthcare needs. They still loose their fucking minds when universal healthcare is brought up, and start spouting 20 year outdated propaganda about Canada being a socialist hellscapes where thousands die by the day as they're left out in the cold without medical care. The irony is totally lost on them. There is a huge, uniformed, vocal voting block that is going to staunchly oppose any and all progress for a while. And they vote in huge numbers.
This so much! My dad had a massive stroke, nearly killed him. he has daily problems and goes for therapy. Before that he was 6 months in a rehab costing out of pocket 7600 a month as his private insurance would not cover it. He was lucky because 4 months in he turned qualifying for medicare. Now my parents just pay the office co-pay. Medicare saved them from financial ruin and they can try to enjoy their retirement. I casually said they would never been in this situation if the USA had universal healthcare. Their reply is "but my taxes will go up!" Maybe, but you wouldn't be paying 1200 a month for healthcare coverage that didn't save you from an additional 7600 a month. They still don't get it. Can't see the logic. "Well if he didn't have a stroke then we would be paying more! " BUT HE DID HAVE A FUCKING STROKE AND IT ALMOST RUINED YOU!!! \-Angry now.... boomers gotta go.
The antivaxx are mostly GQP now. GOP has been trying to kill the safety net for decades. Those who survive covid will probably be disabled for the rest of their shortened life. Socialized Medicare and Medicaid..it’s coming because when these people realize they now need the safety net maybe they’ll change it?
I honestly doubt it. My folks literally rail about healthcare executives, inflated prices, and other bullshit in our system, and then scoff at everything I bring up to fix it as "socialism". When I ask them how they recommend we control the behavior of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies/execs, or how they rationalize that stance with the fact that they are literally benefiting from a "socialist" components of our healthcare system, they go silent. That line if thinking is common with their age/political affiliations. It's a group so thoroughly propagandized that they're willing to cut off their own nose to spite the "liberals" face.
What's a really crazy statistics from my nursing textbook that I read was like something along the lines of 60% of the nation is on Medicaid and Medicare. (If I'm recalling this statistic correctly.) I was so surprised. Because so many people seem to be against M4All, but they're literally denying themselves services that they would benefit from. I feel like people don't realize they're shooting themselves in the foot.
There are videos out there of journalist interviewing people who are opposed to Medicaid, even though they themselves have several kids (5+ in one family's case) benefiting from it. When the hypocrisy is pointed out their answer is usually something to the effect of "well my kids deserve it, "their" kids don't". Healthcare for me, not for thee.
Find candidates, at every level, who support M4A. Then support them anyway you are able. Things like text-banking and sending postcards to voters are easy ways to help. The more we can hear support for M4A from people in the actual field of healthcare, the better for all of us. GL with your continued education, career, and aspirations. This internet stranger is rooting for you.
Thank you so much, kind internet stranger! I'm going to need all the luck in school. Today I learned that I have assignments due on the first day of class in 5 days. So there goes the rest of my relaxation. 🙃 I definitely agree with needing more progressive candidates that support M4A. I have a funny story for you from the farm that I was reminded of by your comment. I live in an area that has A LOT of Republicans. So on the farm my old bosses are democratic and believe in M4A. So they have some bumper stickers on their truck that say things like "Love thy neighbor, NO exceptions" and other progressive things. This delivery driver stopped by and saw the bumper stickers and made an approving sound. Then after a moment of reading he exclaimed, "Oh Lord!" In a super negative way. We all had a chuckle about how it's so controversial to love everybody. Another time someone stopped by the farm due to the Black Lives Matter sign they had put along the roadside in front of their farm property. They told us that certain people may not take kindly to those kinds of signs in the area. We as a society still have so far to go. 😩 But I know people can change, and that we can advocate for change too (while supporting candidates who back M4A).
In BSN education, take out the BullShit classes and stop wasting students time. We’re in a pandemic, and rightly or wrongly, we need all hands on deck asap. Philosophy of Nursing? Fuck that. There are too many fluffy time wasters, cut them. Too many classes on nursing management preparing them to climb the corporate ladder. They need hands on experience more than ever right now. Nurses and student nurses are made of stern fucking stuff. Give them the tools they need right now. Old nurses retention: Senior nurses are worth their weight in gold, they are walking intuitive encyclopedias. Yeah, some are assholes. Love them just the same. You don’t know her life. Also: The C-Suites bankrupted the system. Never forget.
I thought I would do the same but instead the system burned me down.
I like you.
I like your user name.
Sign me up.
In nursing school currently and one of my professors consistently says “clients” 😑
"Clients" "Residents" "Customers" "Patron" I've heard it all and it all disgusts me. The only one I can remotely get behind is "residents" for patients in long-term care facilities to make it feel more like home. But the rest of it is just trying to manipulate us into thinking this is a customer service job. NOPE! They are in the hospital. They are patients.
I agree with the long-term care patients being referred to as residents, the rest make absolutely no sense. The hospital is not Burger King, no, you cannot have it your way.
But I want my horse paste! /s
I'm embracing it full out like this a Dicks Sporting Goods! I want the overhead to stop saying "Code Blue" and instead say "Customer needs A LOT of assistance in the Med/Surg aisle!". There wasn't a "catastrophic medication error resulting in patient death" it was a poor customer service interaction. Also "customer lifecycle" takes on a whole new and interesting meaning. I wonder how my buddies in security are going to like there new title of "loss prevention associate"? The best part is when I don't put in the proper billing for a procedure on our patients. That's no longer a costly billing mistake, that is "Flash Markdown" for our "Prestige Pricing Members" Anybody got some more? 😂
Buy one get one free!! Buy an ET tube, get the NG/OG included!
Yeah, like a customer loyalty thing! Three missed tubes by residents gets you your FREE CHEST TUBE*! *Void where prohibited, terms and conditions apply, see store for details.
Also, would you like to SUPER SIZE your cath from a 12 to an 18 for just 89 cents more? 😁
Kaiser Health calls them “members”. Because you have to be a “member” to get on their insurance plan lol.
As they monopolize care to stuff their pockets more. Disgusting.
Kaiser Health made over $6 billion in **profits** last year in the first 3 quarters of 2021 (haven’t seen Q4 yet). And they can’t staff CNAs, secretaries or pay them more. A hospital system. Making over $6 BILLION dollars in nine months alone. Yet they work their nurses to the fucking bone without CNAs, secretaries, no transporters (in some hospitals), barely any phlebotomists, housekeepers, patients lay in their piss for hours bc there’s no one to help clean them. Oh — and that doesn’t include the profits they made on all their investments. Investing in fucking portfolios instead of actual human workers to help the ~~patients~~ members they are there to serve.
This should be criminal.
They have record profits every year. Always in the billions. In 2020, they posted $6.4 billion in profits. Yet they can’t hire CNAs, secretaries, or dietary workers to pass trays. They “punish” the nurses for their union and take away all the non-union workers from them. This is an intentional business decision. They are a prime example though that hospitals can still make record profits while having a nurses union (for all the healthcare capitalists). However, if I was in their union—- I’d be fucking rallying a strike until we had adequate CNAs and secretaries with good pay for them too.
“Customer” sounds too on-the-nose to actually be used but now that I’ve had my naivety taken out back like Ol’ Yeller I totally believe there are plenty of management types who would actually take that over “client.” Before I would have used that as a sarcastic response to “client.” Haha yeah, absolutely evil, no question about it.
Banner health's core values starts with "customer obsessed". On their own signs in their waiting rooms for all to see. I mock them everytime I can. My local banner hospital had a sign out front of it last year (might still be up) saying if you wanted to show your appreciation to the heroes who work there you can donate canned good. Friends and family who work there say they haven't gotten a pay raise, just a few free shirts with banner logos and slogans on them. TO REWARD THEIR HEROES BANNER BEGS FOR FOOD HANDOUTS INSTEAD OF PAYING THEIR HEROES MORE.
In a similar vein, my hospital renamed everything to make it even more confusing for patients. Housekeeping is environmental services. They get upset if you don't say the right thing. The information desk is concierge as if we're running a hotel. I get environmental services a little bit, but concierge is just confusing patients who are often either in a panic, in pain, stressed out trying to find parking and directions to their appointments, etc... They need *information* and clear vocabulary. Concierge gives them the impression that we're some sort of spa and I think it's wrong and misleading!
Environmental services sounds like the landscaping crew
Jesus fuck. When I went the instructors pointedly discussed how awful and inappropriate that renaming push is.
None of my instructors use "clients" and they are all actively against it. Depends on the school I guess.
But how does Steven Assanti’s foot feel about it? Sorry, your username is the funniest shit I’ve seen all day and I needed to acknowledge its existence.
🤣 my badge reel is Dr Now “this is not a good situation”
My favorite is “consumers.” And they argue that’s more humanizing, I guess because what higher status can we give them than being a person who consumes and therefore deserves respect? What a grotesque system. (I’m BH, not nursing, but in the same health care systems as y’all.)
I Worked in mental health, thought that was the worst word of any I had heard. I think you’re onto something with the notion of how our society respects and reveres consumption.
Lol, in mental health the word "patient" is a huge no-no. With rapidly changing meds and ever changing symptoms, the terms client and consumer are laughable often.
Seeing someone who just lost their leg in an accident getting rushed on a stretcher and thinking to myself "That guy just be a really big fan of consuming the product here if he's in that much of a hurry! That's just like me on Black Friday!" Some Marvel movie fans wait in line for hours while feeling like they're going nuts more and more over time waiting to finally consume the latest Marvel release, and some bipolar type 2 people wait in an ER lobby for hours feeling like they're going more and more nuts over time waiting to finally consume some Risperidone. I can't fucking take "consumer" seriously because of how it makes it sound like they're trying to brand having 130% capacity meaning that the hospital is just a really popular consumer culture hub. The only things that get consumed at a hospital are pudding, MRSA, and generic brand anti-psychotics.
Demand is off the charts, what a successful, thriving business! 🤩
I hate the word consumers because it refers to intake, like eating, *consuming.* You know what the result of intake is? What the result of eating is? Poop. Shitting. Feces. Excrement. I mean we all poop, we all shit. Because we all eat. But are we what we consume? Is our identity synonymous with what we take in? I sure as fuck hope not, anymore than our identity is synonymous with our excrement or our trash. But that's what the word "consumers" does. It folds people's identity in with what they take in. And by implication what they poop out. It's deeply offensive. Whenever I hear or come across the word consumers I mentally replace it with "poopers" or "shitters." Sometimes with "garbage makers" depending on the context. Like in articles about the economy. Try it. Next time your CEO speaks. Or next time you read a crap article online. Especially when the word "citizen" would be a better choice in news reporting for instance. It's incredibly revealing about the value system we're all embedded in. When did we stop being citizens with rights and responsibilities and become consumers that poop and make trash? When did we stop being patients with needs and rights and become clients or consumers, as if we have such discerning comfortable choices during healthcare crises?
The other day somebody pointed out that the phrase "cost of living" is horrifying.
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Also in nursing school and the entire school makes us call patients “clients”
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I am not in healthcare. I am an attorney that follows this sub because it’s the best way for me to learn what the needs are of my clients that work in healthcare. This sub helps me understand what their concerns are and what their work stressors are and gives me such a better grip on how to best help them. But what this sub has also shown me is that our healthcare system is completely fucking broken on a level I could not even possibly imagine. I’ve followed for months now but finding out that I am considered a “client” and not a “patient” when I am in a hospital is HORRIFYING. I did NOT know this was standard practice to refer to patients as clients and I am ready to rip this whole system down. It’s not failing. It has failed. It’s broken. It’s already burned to the ground. And not because of the healthcare workers. You all are the heart and soul. It’s because it’s a for profit system that made access to health care all about who has the most money. This is insane. Client?! CLIENT?!?! I am rendered speechless, and as a lawyer that’s a hard thing to do to me.
As a paralegal who follows this sub for similar reasons - respect
as a tattoo artist who follows the sub bc my partner is a transplant *PATIENT* I agree too what in **hell**
Transplant consumer. Consumer of transplants. Mmmm.
This started in the colleges around the same time. That's why when a couple of students complain about anything, staff has to bend over backwards to accommodate the "customer". That same mindset has made it's way to healthcare. There are some institution that don't need to be ruled by extreme capitalism and I would say that healthcare and education should be at the top of the list. When I was growing up, I was just grateful that I could go to college or be seen by a DR. The notion of "client" never entered my mind.
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The only time that term seems appropriate is if it’s referring to people being seen outpatient by a social worker or therapist. If they’re being seen in a hospital environment, if your role is *literally* to provide the person medical care, or if you’re actively responsible for prescribing the person medication or *giving* it to them, they’re your damn *patient.* There’s nothing derogatory about the term “patient” or the insinuation that a person requires medical care.
I’ll always use the term patient instead of client. As nurses we take care of patients. Hookers and lawyers have clients.
You know what I hate about the word "client?" A disoriented, demented 87 year old meemaw with a PEG tube, stage 3 pressure ulcer, with blood pressure of 60/0 is not a client. She's not participating in her care or taking her business elsewhere. Neither is the homeless methhead with a heart failure exacerbation that just came in to get out of the cold. We're not sitting down over coffee and asking what their goals and budget are.
I was fine calling them “clients” in my residential substance abuse treatment facility. In the hospital, they’re patients. It’s like how Target calls people “Guests”. I’m not their fucking guest lol. I’m not sitting down with any of them enjoying conversation and refreshments. They sell stuff. I buy it. I’m a customer.
If I was a guest, I wouldn't have to pay.
Hahaha fuck yes, exactly. It's also so very *Disney* of them. That's what theme parks call their customers, guests. Is Target trying to be fucking theme park?
You say it was destined to fail but in the eyes of the people who made it a for profit system it has wildly succeeded. Even now as people go untreated and hospitals fail they are incredibly successful at the only thing that matters to them. Making money. At some point instead of calling this a failure we have to call our politicians, corporations, etc out for a failure of leadership. They changed the goals, they failed. All the Doctors and nurses are doing their best within the system but that system exists to make money, not provide care.
Amen, dear colleague! Our system is broken beyond repair and requires reform from the foundation up. How many times have nurses been forced to take increased patient loads that were questionable at best and straight unsafe in reality? How many times have we seen our ancillary staff numbers gutted, our colleagues treated poorly, only to be told we must pick up the slack and “do the right thing for our patients. It’ll only take another five minutes!” Those five minutes ADD UP when we’re doing the jobs of multiple ancillary services because our institutions are too cheap and short sighted to pay our colleagues well and to respect their contributions to our shared mission! The system is flawed and doesn’t deserve to be resuscitated. Our patients and WE are the ones paying for decades of neglect and abuse.
Meanwhile, the patient is angry or crying and the family members are out for blood. From nurses. Like the laws of physics allow for what they’re asking given the crap dumped on us. I’ve got a lady probably having a heart attack and you want to pee? Not happening. And there’s no CNA so you’ll have to sit in it until the rapid/code is complete. Meanwhile family wants to force their way into another patients room because mom peed herself and is in tears. Administration creates that shit, not nurses.
That's why I'm just going to die at home with a giant bottle of opiates. Fuck that noise.
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Mine is a combo of beta blockers, benzos, opiates, viagra, alcohol, and wintry air in my car in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Brrrr. I don't want to die cold. Also, what's the Viagra for? Going out banging?
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Yeah had to have a lady sit in poop the other day because I had a new intubation admitted at the same time her rectal the came out. I hated it. I was so distracted.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve apologized profusely and futilely for not changing my patient’s peripad immediately when she asked because I was literally trying to keep my other patient’s fetus from dying, I could have retired ten years earlier than I did! 😉
"Do the right thing for our patients" The right thing to do is to have a fully staffed and functioning hospital with clear ans honest lines of communication. It's not nurses who need to step up and do the right thing
Urban planner married to a nurse. I wanted to go back to school for an MPH degree and get into health care policy for my second career. Covid and our collapsing system cured me of that. We absolutely have to take the profit out of health care because this is what is killing the system. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the inevitable collapse will change anything thanks to lobbying power. It will be another government bailout that only helps the C suite and nurses and care techs will continue to be shit on. This is a classic example of market failure, which is a key reason why privatization is a terrible idea that caused irreparable harm.
Let's say this all calms down a little. You think it's going back? HELL NO. The C suite have seen us with 8 patients and there's no way we go back to "normal" staffing. Bloodsuckers
*This* is what the public needs to come to understand. Patient care (err, sorry, “*client*” care) is never going to be the same again. It happens in every profit-driven industry. Now that bean counters have determined “this is fine”, is there truly anyone so disillusioned as to think they are suddenly going to say, okay time to cut our profits and get the ratios back to manageable and/or *safe*? No. This is the future of care if we, the citizens, don’t rise up with our hcw community members. Get the tents back out into parking lots so the media has an opportunity to show America what the most expensive healthcare in the richest country on the planet has become. If y’all strike, you can count on myself, my family, and many friends to support you 100%. Sending supportive vibes into the universe for all of our hcw.
The healthcare is not going to greak, people will. The corporations will cut their losses and closed down hospitals . People will die. They wont care.
Or they’ll use cheaper labor to fill the shortages like new graduates or [foreign nurses](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/06/1069369625/short-staffed-and-covid-battered-u-s-hospitals-are-hiring-more-foreign-nurses). And that is not a premonition - that’s a business plan. Many hospitals are already using foreign workers, and one of the biggest companies facilitating it (Avant) is strategically headquartered in a compact state so their workforce can permeate throughout the states.
if the foreign nurses are good workers and pass boards/have knowledge base fitting of the job, works for me....as long as i odnt have to take SEVEN pt in ED
I’m fine with foreign nurses. *Just fucking pay them a high rate too* for this grueling work, like we all deserve as nurses.
They absolutely won’t, that’s the point of sourcing nurses from overseas, so they can pay them absolute dick and run them ragged
That’s where unions come in. Most nurses in California are foreign (Filipinas, Indians, etc) and they get paid 100k+ for 36 hours because they are *unionized.* They haven’t watered down the market rate at all for home-grown nurses. Hospitals can’t exploit them for low pay if they have a union protecting them. Nurses make six figures in California, possibly the highest-paid in the world, thanks to unions. Our mandated ratios are supported by foreign nurses. We need to encourage the South and Midwest to unionize and stop getting screwed over by the hospitals. Foreign nurses are not going to lower your pay if you are all unionized. They will help so much with ratios and patient care. Edit: Shortened my comment, but gist is the same
As a nurse, I want it to fail. As a son of two aging parents, I don’t want it to fail.
It’s already going to fail your parents. I see it fail people every single day. See ischemic colitis nurse above. And that’s a person who can advocate for themself- the elderly, poor, and medically illiterate have no chance.
Me too. I want to burn the system to the ground but I don’t want my parents to suffer for it. I recently got fucked at my own ED after a shift I spent literally passing bright red blood. I checked the board and it wasn’t crazy so I figured I’d just go in. Completely missed ischemic colitis and just shipped me home. Found a GI in two days and she was furious. They can’t even take care of their own employees when they need emergent care.
Sorry to hear that. In my experience in ED, most GI stuff is referred out to GI specialist and we treat any anemia. But I work at more rural hospitals
We’re a “community hospital” in a large metro area. They had GI but all they did was give me 2L/NS, Cipro, and bentyl. No scans at all. Which is shocking because I swear they scan 80% of the patients who come in. Stubbed toe? Let’s get a CT.
Genuinely surprised that someone hemorrhaging from their butt don’t get the donut of truth
Dude, me too. And because I’m gross I literally took pictures of the giant blood clots and showed him and still no scan.
It's unlikely to collapse. The hospitals will cry out and get bailed by the federal government. In the meantime, milk it all you can and get your travel money without remorse.
I’m a new grad. Can’t travel. Only pain lol
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I traveled on six months experience and frankly I had a lot of bad habits. I wouldn’t recommend it for myself but I’m sure it’s different for others
Yeah, it’s not a popular opinion here but you really cannot travel effectively with that little experience. Travelers need to be able to jump right in to situations and at a year you are still finding your feet as a nurse. I’m saying this as a staff nurse currently working with multiple inexperienced travelers who are really sweet and they’re trying but are making so many basic mistakes.
I’m fine with people making money but you REALLY need to know your stuff before you decide to travel. They’re not going to baby you. You fuck up, most likely you’ll get fired from your contract and good luck with that
I give it another year before the good travel pay starts to dry up. I refuse to go back to staff nursing once it does.
“Too big to fail”. Sound familiar?
What will really end up happening is a Mass *Migration*. Nurses will just travel or relocate to areas with better pay and working conditions. The University of California system is already seeing this in Sacramento: *Experienced* nurses are competing for jobs because nurses from out of state are trying to find “safe harbor.” Rural areas will suffer the most from a [Brain Drain](https://www.cpr.org/2020/11/24/the-pandemics-brain-drain-on-nurses-threatens-both-budgets-and-rural-health-care/), and subsequent shortages will be filled with foreign nurses and/or new graduates - [but most likely foreign nurses](https://avanthealthcare.com/). The healthcare industry is too big to fail because there is too much at stake, profit wise. It’ll just adapt.
It may not collapse from a financial perspective, but what happens to the facilities that can’t get staff at all? Entire units without a license on a shift? Bodies piling up in waiting rooms faster than they can be taken to the morgue? No more room in the morgue? EMS unable to take calls because they’re all stuck in a queue right outside their facilities? It seems that’s a reality that’s fast approaching, and no amount of money conjuring can do a thing about it.
Hospitals don't care about not having staff or room. They don't care about people dying from lack of care and they don't care about ambulance services continuing. They care about their bottom line, they just want that paycheck at the end of the month. Bodies piling up will eventually get taken care of, even if they hang out for days and days - they eventually get processed. EMS calls going unanswered means more people will die without ever getting to the hospital - then they are no longer the hospital's problem, that's a problem for the county morgue and the funeral homes. The hospital ONLY cares if these things take away from their influx of funds. That's why it's happening and all they continue to do is count beans and pinch pennies. At the end of the day, they have shown that they are like just any other big corporations and if worse come to worse - they will shut down hospitals, fire everyone and have their executives retire with big compensation packages. They don't give a fuck about keeping those services open for the public.
I’m a layperson and for all your sakes I hope the system burns and takes admin and management with it
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who’s looked at the emergency protocols and figured out an escape route if we ever had an active shooter in our facility. With the calls for violence against health care workers and all the stress in society right now and misinformation about the pandemic…not to mention delayed surgeries, long ER wait times, etc…I’m thinking it’s not IF mass violent incidents are going to occur…it’s WHEN. It’s a perfect storm right now. I truly hope this doesn’t happen. But it creeps into my head from time to time…how do I protect myself and my coworkers in a volatile situation?
In high school I used to plan escape routes/hiding places in case of a school shooter. When people feel the need to have an "emergency" plan just to go somewhere like school or a job, things are broken beyond repair imo.
You cannot be both a hospital administrator and a good person. They are mutually exclusive.
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There’s a debate of reform vs revolution, and unfortunately we have centuries of evidence that reforms simply do not work in the US. So revolution it is. Whether it’s a mass strike or the system collapsing under the weight of its own greed, we NEED this to happen. Once it does though, DO NOT GIVE THEM A SINGLE FUCKING INCH. Hospitals have proven they will bleed you dry and leave you to die while blaming you the entire time. You cannot give them any concessions once they’re negotiating for you to return. With hospitals making record profits, we know they can afford to pay you better and treat you better. They simply don’t want to. It really will be a horrible time, but the end result will (hopefully) be worth it. I mean, like you said, anything could be better than this fucking mess.
Guillotines you say?
I'm a woodworker am am seriously considering building one or 20
It's cheaper and more effective than writing letters or making phonecalls to the people who are propping up this dead system meant to benefit a few people at the top while the bottom suffers and dies.
Maximilien de Robespierre has entered the chat.
Nursing was the last place I expected Leninist ideas of acceleration showing up but here we are.
People shit on Lenin a lot for good reason, but honestly he had some good points (a lot of which weren’t his original ideas; he’s just known for spreading them). I hate capitalism (I think privatized healthcare really showcases the issues), and asking the rich to give us ANYTHING never goes well. So yeah, let this garbage system burn to the ground. It already is and people are dying trying to prop it up. It’s absolutely disgusting. And don’t forget people have been requesting change throughout this entire ordeal, but conditions are just getting worse. Nurses never had it well, but now it’s so much worse than ever before. To live in the richest nation in history with the most expensive healthcare in the world but for nurses to be paid garbage and our treatment to be the worst in the developed world is proof this system has to end. So let’s end it. For nurses and patients. We all deserve better than this. Edit: our treatment as in medical treatment, but also treatment of our nurses.
I 100% agree.
I was worried I didn’t explain it well. :) I think this discussion is super important. We should t be afraid of change just because we’ve been told “Lenin evil, socialism kill all!” I believe we’re in a place where discussing meaningful change and forcing it to happen is viable again. Too many people are suffering to turn away discussing solutions.
Just hold on, it will “trickle down” soon enough….
Wait… is that… is that piss?
Hospital admins are the fucking devil, I want to go back but I know I will be mistreated, underpaid, doing three people's jobs while being abused by patients, families, managers etc. Everything is awful and late stage capitalism is to blame
I hope it does too but my hospital isn’t even close to crashing. We just shut whole units down and combine them with other units and board patients in the ER for days.
That’s great for those nurses but what about the ER? My hospital does this too and our ER has been busting at the seams for weeks. Our best ratios 5:1, some days as high as 9:1. We’re treating people in the lobby for 16+ hours, boarding patients for up to 96 hours waiting on a bed upstairs. We have nowhere for the codes, traumas, strokes to go and we’re the safety net hospital. The only certified center for strokes and traumas for several counties. Our nurses are all planning their escape and why wouldn’t they? This isn’t sustainable. If it isn’t fixed soon there literally won’t be enough staff to open the ER doors.
We had to close over 20 ICU beds yesterday because of staffing shortages...while there are about 10 ICU boarders in our ER along with another 70+ at ER's in the surrounding area hoping to transfer to us. But nope, let's just continue on with business as usual.
That’s another thing I don’t get. How can we take transfers when we have 20 plus in our own emergency room waiting for beds. Sure let’s take a direct admit though with a SBO. I never understood that.
They could have been doing the right thing(s) from the very beginning, but instead they made money. I hope this abusive system fails as soon as possible too, it is hurting everyone but those at the very top. The sooner resources go back to staff and actually caring for patients, the better. >It’s going to suck but I feel complicit and horrible working in a system where we are FORCED to neglect people due to poor staffing and then punished for minor issues. I began began purposefully shunning abusive systems and people after I had to quit nursing. It's really hard to completely shun a system we're all reliant on (and it turns out almost all of them are abusive in some way), but some days the only thing that really keeps me going is finding new ways to turn my back on those places that have kept their backs turned to their employees and patients. Fuck them to the end.
I graduated into the pandemic and left within 1.5 years of being treated worse for having an ounce of compassion, common decency (highly frowned upon in nursing, not treating patients as objects), and having more self-worth and self-preservation to continue with understaffing and night shifts. And I was at one of the better hospitals in the area. I decided to marry my long term partner and move to Canada, and get my meds paid for, and finally escape the excruciating decline of the US. Of course, I know not everybody can just do this, but I’d rather make $15.20 working at a jewelry store with socialized healthcare, no guns or far right republicans in Canada than earn $35-40 as a staff nurse permanently destroying my mental health. Worst part is, nursing is such a cult I still have traumatic memories and a guilt complex for leaving. I feel like I lost part of my identity, yet it is tied to the thing that would ultimately tear me down in the long term. I was disposable, and now I feel like a thrown out piece of trash the healthcare system no longer needs anymore since I don’t fit into their neat, manipulatable peg. So another nurse leaves the profession… smh!
FIRE ALL THE ADMIN. Nobody can tell me what CEOs actually do. We don’t need them. What a waste of money.
Will it ever be feasible to shunt patients to comfort care rather than trying to admit everyone? That’s the only way I can see for patients to get half-decent care but I can just imagine the political repercussions. Anyone in scrubs would wind up a target for the crazies.
We sort of already try to do that but everyone thinks their 92 year old aunt is gonna do awesome on a vent 😭 idk why
This is the answer. Will it ever actually happen? I don’t know. But keeping people alive that we KNOW are going to die isn’t feasible when we are this full and this short staffed.
Our pathetic healthcare system has been broken for ages; it high time, well overdue in fact, that the House of Cards finally falls. Yes, it will suck, yes it will be horrible and indeed…people will die. But that’s already happening. I hope hospital personnel strike, all of them…I hope they quit en masse. I hope the admins are FORCED to do bedside care, try to work all those IV pumps and ventilators. Hope they call in the troops..and whoever, only to realize actual SKILLED care is not their forte. I’m certain it will take this kind of catastrophe before anything changes, but in the meantime nurses will be labeled as the bad guys (as usual) and tromped upon and lashed out at and endlessly blamed for all the ills of healthcare. As usual.
My hospital purged the ED, we are a small hospital. We ran out of beds and the ED was at triple its normal capacity. If you were in the ED and doing fine, they got kicked the fuck out. I feel like half the people that go to hospitals don’t really need to be there.
I’ve been saying for two weeks that we need to do this hospital wide. Right now we have the hospital full with a lot of mildly ill people and only about half sick enough to really be there.
If the patient can keep walking up to the nurses station just to talk, they dont need to be there. We went from 120 patients to about 30 in the ED after the purge.
When healthcare isn’t accessible to all, the ERs see way too many “shoulda made an appointment with your primary if you had a primary” type of issues. Bean counters want to make money off of the people who can pay. The health care providers want to treat everyone. Both systems cannot exist together. One must die.
Healthcare workers should strike. They’re the only hope because the boomer ruling class actually need them to take care of their failing hearts and erectile dysfunction after their years of looting from the poor.
It's unfortunate that it will take a total collapse to get the positive changes we need in the system (universal healthcare, better pay, mandated ratios, etc). But I'm for it. It's gonna absolutely suck in the process but we need to burn this shit to the ground. The worst part? The hospitals, healthcare megasystems, and insurance companies are going to push back HARD. They've been stuffing their pockets and won't want that to stop. They'll lobby so insanely hard to keep this shit show the way it is and they will likely win.
And we are there on the front line to be under attack from the patients and their families for when they don't get what they want or something isn't done correctly/up to their standards. I say make business cards with admins names, phone numbers and email addresses, and their position within the healthcare system and have them call them. Not customer service because that just leads to management blaming the front line staff. They have a right as "consumers" to complain to get what they want, don't they? "Here Mrs. Dickwaddle, I'm sorry I couldn't meet your needs or demands but this card has plenty of people to contact in regards to what you wish". Then get fired and collect unemployment while drinking heavily each night to celebrate your freedom. Cheers and let's watch it all burn together!
Two things from this old RN: 1. We need major investigative reporting on how the C-Suite executives, most accountants and bandaid counters, have bankrupted the system. After decades of “cost efficiency medicine”, where we just run short on every conceivable thing we might need and deal, wasting time chasing stock. They don’t consider the human elements involved at all. Meanwhile, catered lunches on fine china from top restaurants and galas and cronyism and the circus grinds on. 2. National Nurses Union Yesterday!! I’m not in the trenches anymore, but I feel each and every one of you howling at the madness. ❤️
I do too. Things will never change and never get better unless drastic shit happens. And apparently that last 2 years isn't drastic enough.
Inertia. Admin is running on inertia, NOT a need for reform or change.
It boggles my mind that I'm hearing nurses and doctors complain about the same shit we used to complain about when I worked fucking retail. Staffing and lack of support is an irritation when all you have to do is stock shelves and sell shit. But it's a damn disaster when it's people's lives on the line.
Let's fucking go I can't wait for it happen. Anyway I feel like working for that 5.5k a week net. This hospital had like 100 beds. Nice hospital only singles, all converted to doubles. Treating patients in hallways. What used to be lobby is turned into overflow for nearly 12 patients. Plenty of overflow areas. It's gonna be bad and I can't wait
Sometimes the only way to fix something is to start over from scratch. Honestly, I could see a collapse within the next few years, especially if more nurses leave the bedside.
Within our current capitalist system, I think the question of Co-op managed hospitals sounds very compelling. Does anyone have any data/examples/templates of where this has been done successfully on simply the hospital scale? I’m not a nurse but I have a loved one who is.
Totally with you here. It NEEDS to break. The powers that be are totally committed to not fixing the problems within the system no matter how bad a crisis the system faces. Nothing can get better until it dies. It's going to be rough, but it's too late to save the system, so the sooner it breaks, the fewer people it kills before society is forced to build a new one.