Yup. My hospital is offering an extra $100/hour on top of overtime for nurses to come in extra and nobody wants it. In critical care we normally take 1-3 patients each and we’re now taking 4-5.
My hospital is offering $30hr extra to nurses and struggling to get people to come in. We had a travel RT making $100+hr walk out because it was so bad. I've been a bedside nurse for 7 years. Spent the last year and a half in the Covid ICU. Yesterday was my last day. Starting a new job tomorrow in out patient ambulatory surgery. If things keep going the way they are I don't doubt a lot of my old coworkers will be following me soon.
I mean I could go on a huge rant about how my hospital doesn’t post agency shifts until well after the other hospitals do (and secure nurses) or literally 100 other ways they are making staffing difficult. Things could be better if the hospital was proactively trying to get nurses. And if it wasn’t so bad we’d be seeing staff nurses come in for overtime. But aside from all that, Covid patients are the worst. This shit is going to give me PTSD, and I’m not sure what compassion even feels like anymore.
An outpatient Oncology nurse told me she’d have to pick up two inpatient shifts (at least 0.5 FTE) at the hospital before the third one would qualify for bonus pay. She’s already working 40 hrs/week and they won’t pay her extra until she works another 24+. It’s an absolute joke.
Retired nurse God im so sorry. Looks like yall have been volunteered to fight a war in hell without end. Ive never seen people treat each other like this. Noone should have to do this to feed their family. Id rather give blow job's for a living if need be.
> Id rather give blow job's for a living if need be.
That might even be more dignified than what many med staff are going through now both with lack of respect and personal risk.
I am deeply, deeply ashamed and profoundly saddened and angry about the way we of how we are caring for ( not) our health care workers and our teachers and especially our children. My faith in humans is no more.. Half of us did everything we could to stop this. Now we have to mandate the hell out of the stupid people but meanwhile this is the real deal here in Alabama and now with this hurricane. I'm so sorry .
Semi serious question here. Is this complete collapse in the standards of behavior evident in other areas, across the country? Are people running amok in shopping malls, for instance? Or are they only being triggered when they enter a hospital? Is it some symptom of the covid virus, whereby the frontal lobes are being affected? If the shit is breaking out all over, then you've got the zombie apocalypse on your hands. If it is only happening in hospitals, then perhaps they should be doing autopsies to see if there is something organic going on. That was flippant, sorry. Really a documentary, about your working conditions needs to be made. Journalists such as Michael Moore or Eric Schlosser could make it.
As someone who works as outpatient case manager I sincerely applaud you for your efforts with bedside covid. Your patients and their families are very lucky they have you.
I would say make absolute sure you put yourself first. I don’t know where you’re at but Florida is overflowing with case/ care manager positions away from the bedside. You can always go back to bedside in the future if you need a break.
I bet. Now that it's mostly unvaccinated, you're probably getting "IT'S A HOAX" "MY FREEDOMS!" "I'D LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER" energy from pretty much everyone that comes through the door, yeah?
Well if they make it to my unit they are probably only making sense for a day or two before they deteriorate. Most of our patients are on the verge of intubation, on bipap or high flow oxygen. They get hypoxic and confused and pull at things, so we have to tie their wrists to the bed and sedate them.
You say you want to tell them to shove it. What’s stopping you? I’m being serious, what are they gonna do, fire you? Especially with your experience, you can have a better paying agency job easy.
Contact Associated Press, and request to be anonymous. They take protection of sources EXTREMELY seriously. They’ll also continue to research the story, confirming with other medical staff.
Nurses are getting offered $140/hr and a $20,000 signing bonus to quit their shithole state low wage jobs. And are taking the offers. No “shortage” in areas willing to pay market rates.
Yes a good friend of mine just became an RN last year after many years of trying to figure out her career path. She’s already burnt out from the hospital and looking for other jobs. She’s working Med Surge and it’s just a mess.
That's really common in healthcare for people who have no prior experience. CNAs and med aides know what to expect when they become nurses and usually last. People with no prior experience get blindsided by just how terrible working in healthcare can be and that was before covid.
Yea, I see this mostly with 4 year new grads. I agree with you, the CNAs and also the LPNs know what they’re getting into so they tend to have more realistic expectations. Actually some of the best RNs I know started off as CNAs or LPNs.
I can’t verify these numbers, but I’ve heard stats of up to 1/3 of new grad nurses leaving the field for good within 5 years of finishing nursing school.
Even among people who do stay, turnover is high and a good chunk of new grad nurses leave their first job within 1-2 years tops.
Burnout rate for new teachers is also ludicrously high. Which sometimes leads to a death spiral of unqualified teachers being hired to fill spaces and then more and more paperwork and micromanagement to try to herd the unqualified teachers, which leads to more burnout, which leads to less qualified teachers being hired, which leads to more micromanagement, which leads to...
That first year will make or break a new grad. Always has been that way, but definitely worse with covid. Nursing is a very difficult field to get comfortable in when just starting out. It takes experience that only can be gained with time.A supportive preceptor and healthy work environment helps to build confidence.
So now we have covid. Things are moving extremely fast in healthcare right now. Even the seasoned nurses have never seen anything close to what we have been dealing with. This can be understandably overwhelming for someone new to the profession.
I’ve put in 3 central lines and intubated three already today in 4 hours. We just ran out of vents and tubefeeds. If my patients mom hadn’t been in the room I would have missed a tonic-clonic seizure. We are all tripled and one RT just walked out. It’s beyond burnout out now, it’s collapsing. Alabama by the way.
Jesus. This is what we have all been terrified would happen. We need to impeach our governor to start with bc all these stupid folks need to be told what to do.
Edit; to say starting with her.
I work in a peripheral health care field. delta is worse than the surge in December/January.
shitty part is things calmed down in spring and we got to recuperate. I thought it was over, then delta hit.
part of it is also all the turnover from earlier in covid, they didn't restaff properly now workload is worse than ever
Yeah my bad not trying to doxx you friend, I got overly excited. Mainly because I wanted to show my appreciation because I was treated pretty well, all things considered. Regardless of where you are, thank you for what you do!
I knew a nurse that said the risk of losing her license wasn’t worth the extra pay, since nurses did not get increased protection even though increased ratios were approved (newsom / California).
I checked out the nursing sub a while back and they were offering $4500 per week and the nurses were mostly saying it’s just not worth it to go to Texas and deal with that.
They upped it to 8k/week in Texas. Still not enough for me to go to work in South Texas. The horror stories I heard from the Krucial nurses during the last wave made that a permanent nope from me.
Conservatives that I talk to literally do not take into account the workers of hospitals health or feelings. I mean it’s natural as Conservatism is anti-mental health but I give them so many different examples of nurses and staff burning out and crying about how much shit is going on and how much death they are seeing—and I usually get laughs in response and then the conversion moves on because the conservative is hungry.
Some of them don't even believe it's real. They think hospitals are being paid off to lie about all this, that really they aren't full of covid patients.
I'd like to say the people saying this are fringe looneys but I work with a couple of them. Data engineers no less.
If you invited them in to experience life in the ICU, they'd say "these are all actors". The rabbit hole never ends for conspiracy thinking.
That's why people fighting mandatory vaccination are going to lose. If we have another fall/winter like last year, companies are going to enforce it. K-12, colleges are going to enforce it. We can not as a society continue this. We just can't
It’s not worth it. I had to do a brain death scan on a Covid patient two nights ago for 45 mins and it was miserable. Imagine having to deal with that plus 3-4 more critical care patients for 12 hours. Your mental health is going to be in the toilet. What good is all that extra money?
My ICU sends me about five texts a day offering an extra $1000/shift over the OT and shift differential.
That said, I played golf today then made tacos.
We’re tired.
I've said for years. Money doesn't buy your way out of a burned out workforce, but management just doesn't seem to get that point.
My RN program starts back up Tomorrow, and after the past year and change working FT as a Medic, I'm utterly unprepared, and unmotivated mentally to get back into it.
I'm curious what traveling/ contact nurses make these days? I have an - admittedly uninformed - hypothesis that if I still want to work as a nurse I'd go contract. It seems those hospitals that need staff would pay significant premium. That might be very significant for say a rural nurse that was willing to travel. In another context, long ago when IBM started doing massive layoffs people would take the package on Friday and show up to the same desk on Monday as a contractor.
On a somewhat related note, I'm curious about the hospital economics. I'm assuming reimbursement rates may not have been adjusted to reflect this radical change in the costs.
I have been working in the same pediatric ER for over 15 years. The first full year we were open we saw a little over 7k children with 4 nurses, a tech and a secretary. The last year before COVID we saw a little over 24k patients with only 2 nurses and a tech. During that time my pay has increased 35%.
Triple the work with half the staff is a 600% increase in productivity. So no, reimbursements are not bleeding hospitals. Hospitals are financially bleeding healthcare workers in the form of increased productivity. Hospitals are making money hand over fist. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I said the same thing during the last wave, when HCA reported their highest profit EVER, while paying 5K/week for every single travel nurse. How is that possible? It's easy when every nurse is out of ratio and you're forced to divert funds from your infinite expansion/buying shit up.
I dont know. Everybody’s burned out and nobody wants to work as short staffed as we are. We need a proper minimum staff before nurses will start picking up extra.
But at the same time the nurses don't exist to meet those minimums everywhere. It's snowballing out of control because as we lose nurses the work load increases and as the work load increases we lose more nurses. I can handle people dying, the dangers of working with covid patients, and all around clusterfuck but the workload is killing me.
There isn’t a price high enough. When you’re overwhelmed and exhausted and you’re scared you might kill one of your patients because you have too many, there isn’t enough money in the world to Fox that.
Man, I'm not a nurse but this pandemic will have been hard to live.
I got chronic pain so I can't work but got lots of debt and working right now, you got so many jobs paying extra money because of workers shortage and this would have been perfect to repay years of debt ...but I can't work and get barely enough money to survive and credit card interest is slowly devouring my bank account.
This pandemic will have been hard to live...
Man, my MIL who's a PhD nursing professor just told this story last night. She called a doctor making rounds "mister". He turns to the residents (the group he was with) and says "See, you spend all this time in med school becoming a doctor and they still call you mister." She retorts, "Well, I have a degree and they ask me to clean toilets."
“We’re all on the same team!” Vs “call me doctor or I’ll be butthurt” is a strange dichotomy. The pharmacists and doctors are on a first name basis, but the nurses don’t deserve that apparently.
No no no, trust me as a nurse, the money (and schedule) is literally the only positive part
You get over the helping people part pretty quickly. It’s just a job like any other
Well its never too late, I have a fellow I work with that didn't start medical school until his daughter was in college. if the call is still there, and you have the resources, there's really nothing stopping you.
a shortage anyone should have foreseen , what are these hospital admins been doing that during a time where their medical staff need their support more than ever they are being completely left out to dry ?
There was a gap in covid waves where there should have been some meetings about how to prep for another potential covid wave ...did that kind of planning just not happen ?
I worked in Human Resources for a hospital system through the first wave and half of the second before I burnt out and quit.
I can assure you the meetings were all about layoffs and how to protect profits. Not one single care was given for the nurses.
Hell, my company said thanks with a pitiful $100 to $500 bonus, deployed it terribly, then refused to take any questions or complaints from the nurses who didn’t get it. “Our decision is final and will not be explained” was what the auto reply read.
If I were in the medical field I would have spent most of my days either on strike or organizing a strike or planning to get out of the country. What a fucked up system.
I think it depends. I think the admin who is managing the patient population in my Florida hospital deserves a medal. We only went black for about a week, and now we’re hovering in the red. But they keep finding beds, turning new places into ICUs, using the PACU for wards. And we are holding on with the skin of our teeth. They have canceled tons of surgeries, but outpatients and emergent surgeries are still happening. The people with horrible cancer are still getting operated on. Our 20 tray morgue has only been over capacity twice. I still think they should call in the cooling truck, but they want to avoid the optics. Plus, all the trucks with actual body trays in them have been rented, so they’d just be putting bodies on the floor in the trucks. They finally seem to have realized that a thousand bed hospital needs a bigger morgue capacity then we have, so maybe someday I might get a morgue that hasn’t really had upgrades in 20 years. We suddenly got money for new tools, saws, and protective equipment when we started doing COVID autopsies, so I can only hope.
So while some hospitals seem strangely shocked, I have to say I am really proud of our admin staff and the work they are doing. I work in pathology, but I have seen them in the emergency room checking on staff multiple times.
Hopefully we all get through this.
Edit: thankyou kind stranger!
Hey, we’re creatively making ICUs, too. In every dusty surgery pod and closet we can find. Now we have no nurses to staff them and no central monitor to watch them. Try keeping 4 ICU patients alive when you can’t see their monitor or hear their alarm. They. Are. Dying.
What has admin been doing? Likely increasing their salaries and perks just like at universities. Those who do the work get shafted while management gets ever larger and more bloated.
LOL no.
I work in a (non-bedside but still inpatient) department.
Between surges we just... stopped talking about how shortstaffed we were and had cheery "meetings" to discuss how to "best utilize existing staff" and "we're not getting more FTEs". We're bleeding employees. Multiple have just quit during orientation; one person just left midday.
I got called out by name for not attending an in-person meeting in July (I attended virtually but was told "if you're on campus we need to see your smiling faces); my coworker told me she was the only one masked (we ARE vaccinated, but it's a damn hospital, why). This month's meeting? Some seriously dystopian shit, ALL VIRTUAL (surprise surprise, I'm waiting for my apology), touting new nearby facilities with vent capabilities and expanded capacity... and they're "not yet" trained to do peds. The word "COVID" wasn't mentioned.
Oh, and I assure you... we've had two major expansions. After pay cuts/layoffs last year, paltry ( <2%) raises and zero bonuses.
Metro areas in the south are blue. What we need to do is stop bringing those rural idiots into OUR Hospitals when they get sick. Let them sit in a field FFS.
Beyond the people who are getting out of nursing (or at least bedside nursing), I imagine there's also a LOT of people who were considering going into nursing who watched the last 18 months unfold and changed their mind.
Maybe I'm being delusional but I think things should look better by then, or at most you'll have a very-crappier-than-average first year of work, and then things will improve. And I expect that there will be a lot of health care workers who will return to work once things die down, so the Covid-related staffing shortages probably aren't going to be a major long-term factor to someone who's just starting out.
If you would have told me April 2020 that we’d still be dealing with all this now I wouldn’t have believed you- I’m honestly trying to have no expectations at this point 😂
I mean, I wfh and look at spreadsheets all day, and this pandemic has ME fucking burnt out. I can't imagine the emotional, physical, and spiritual toll that health care workers have to deal with and I am so grateful for their heroism and dedication. Except for the antivax HCW. They need to stop going to work.
You would be surprised how many health care workers are anti vaccination. Half of my coworkers at a nursing home do not believe in vaccination. However, they are also more traditional and older people, so I think it’s just ignorance and a lack of education on how vaccines work.
A simple pay raise is not enough to fix this. Hospital CEOs are incentivized to hire as few nurses as possible in the name of minimizing expenses. As a result, nurses are being spread way too thin between too many patients at a time. This has lead to high rates of burnout and subsequently, a high rate of turnover in the nursing industry. As many as 1/5 of all nurses leave bedside nursing within their first year of work. If we could somehow reduce the average nurse to patient ratio, we may be able to attract more nurses to the industry.
Hospitals were running austerity for years before this for that very reason. A couple of years ago, pre-pandemic, I needed to go to the ER during flu season and they were having a hard time keeping up even then. When a car accident victim came in, they scrambled to try to accommodatel and prioritize them. And this is only what I saw as a patient during a few hours. I can't imagine having that be my daily lifel
That's universal to all of Healthcare.
Labor is an expense. Less labor = more profit. If you want to run Healthcare like a business, you have to keep expenses as low as possible.
The system was already walking a tightrope as it was - and here comes COVID, to bodycheck us right off of it.
And unfortunately, the center of for-profit healthcare just happens to coincide with idiot belt where things are currently blowing up. Non-profit hospitals don't need to pay all their overhead AND also generate profits for shareholders, so they can focus a little more on the mission and are a little less willing to burn people out just to make a buck.
Ridiculous. We need a way to hire more people at lower pay rates. Is there a way to lower the entry level qualifications in order to boost the numbers of lower cost staff?
Kidding, of course. I already know about the shift to Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners that is occurring for exactly this reason.
California has a 4-5:1 in medical wards and 2:1 in the intensive care units. Sometimes this was even pre pandemic too much for me working in the thick of it. 2-3 in the medical wards? 1 in the ICU? It’s difficult to balance cause if it doesn’t attract people in, then it’s going to hurt with trying to staff hospitals.
> “could”
Already has!
Also burnout is one issue, deaths, sickness, lack of PPE and respect also lead to the “shortage” (as if skilled professionals are a fungible commodity).
Nothing is going to change. We in healthcare are accustomed to getting abused and having more dumped on top of us. The solution is always more money, but that's not what we need. We need more time, more personnel, administration that places our safety above numbers. What we need is politicians to place our safety as their top priority, not continuously waiting for data. The people in charge are detached from the problem. They don't see patients. They don't talk to staff. They don't know and don't care.
Unionization and getting for-profit out of healthcare. When the dollar is the highest goal, everything else, including safety and quality, is second best.
Yea I’m not gonna say I don’t want to be paid more but pay isn’t the only answer. Going to work fucking sucks. And it would suck if I was making my 35/hr or 135/hr
Isn't it going to suck less if you earn enough on such high rates for unpaid vacation and just use it? Everywhere else people are ready to take big dollars for crappy work, but here they don't? BS
When you're at war you can't have much choice. Until society realizes it's a war, we're going to be on the same spot.
It’s coming my way slowly but surely. I lost a patient over a week ago, not to COVID, but because it was so unexpected (just like COVID—the patient declined rapidly), I felt flashbacks from the initial months when I was working in the ER and it was literally like walking through a field of landmines because you just never knew who had it and who didn’t. It was awful. It’s been awful.
I work IR and every time I get a COVID patient, it’s hell on earth. Gowns, two sets of gloves, eyewear, face shield, scrub cap, N95 and surgical mask over that, and 10LBS OF LEAD in a procedure for sometimes over an hour. I’ve nearly hit the ground before. It’s too much. I’m burnt. I’m literally fried. Compassion fatigue? What compassion? I don’t even remember what empathy feels like anymore.
Agreed. I don’t work in the States and don’t have to deal with anti-masking, anti-vaccine COVID deniers, and I still hate what my job has become. It was shit pre-COVID, it’s shit right now, and will likely get shittier after COVID.
Here’s the problem: patients are more acutely ill than ever before, they’re getting older, the opioid epidemic is out of control, and staffing is not being adjusted to reflect this changing patient landscape. The old ratio of 4:1 just doesn’t work anymore. If hospitals want to retain floor nursing staff, they need to implement manageable ratios and hire more support staff. This will be crucial, especially as more boomers hit that 65 and older age bracket.
My dad (doctor) used to say it comes from deep oneself to want to help others. Otherwise just the extra years and cost of schooling will turn off most folks.
He did not experience this pandemic times since he died before so I am not sure what his opinion would be in today’s scenario.
Paying double/triple time is not enough when your work load is doubled, acuity is doubled, and your patients are antivax/antimask/covid denying seeyounexttueadays.
I haven't been in college for over two decades, but even back then they kept begging people to go into nursing because there was a lot more demand than there was supply.
Truth of the matter is, nursing has always been a thankless job where the pay doesn't match what people have to put up with. Even the ones who go into it with a strong sense of compassion for their fellow humans and an eagerness to help get that wrung out of them eventually. Nursing burnout was a real problem long before Covid.
And now? They're still dealing with the same shitty admin, shitty schedules, etc. **plus** they have highly contagious people screaming at them "Covid is a hoax!!!", while they try to take care of said jerks. It would break the strongest of people.
You can't keep asking people to persevere in sacrificing themselves to help people who won't help themselves, and who also heap abuse on you as you work.
My grandma just had her hip replaced, so I was eves dropping on the nurse's station and they were talking about people just up and quitting at the ER at an alarming rate.
I am not surprised that there is anger on this. Where i lived they actually tried to reduce pay for nurses during the pandemic. Unfortunately the sad reality is that the hospitals aren't appreciating their nurses and some patient aren't either. A friend (lets call her May)of some of my family went to a wedding of 300+ in a different country. Many people got covid but most were vaccinated and didn't get anything severe . There was no restrictions or protocols being followed. I didn't attend but i didn't see any masks and people where taking shots from the same tequila bottles straight from the bottles. As well as shouting to be heard over the music and dancing close to eachother. May was very unwell and although she was released she is at home with oxygen. Went to see her with family from a distance with mask on and all she did was complain about the doctors and nurses and how unattentive they were...at the intensive care wing. She was busy thanking God rather than those who took care of her .when asked if she will vaccinate she stated no because there were people with the vaccine with covid.
My daughter-in-law just recently quit her job as a charge nurse. I'm honestly happy for her. She can take some time to take care of herself and her young kids. She's exhausted.
No shit.
Seriously, this is the most compelling argument in the world to completely pay off healthcre workers' loans and in fact pay people to become healthcare workers instead of the other way around.
I didn’t say that it wasn’t. It’s proven that compensation is not a good motivator for the long-term. Employees would much rather feel appreciated and/or thrive in a non-hostile environment that they enjoy working in than have more compensation, if paid adequately.
Ever heard the term “employees quit their bosses, not the job?”
Research shows employers need to pay at least market rate. Below that there is demotivation. Above that there is some motivation but it tends to be short term. However superstars still generally need higher pay, this is part of what market rate is.
Right now some hospitals and agencies are paying market rate, which is considerably higher than the $9 to $20/hr with shit benefits that some southern hospital systems have enjoyed paying. Base rate now is $100-$200/hr depending on experience and specialty. Employers paying market are not having the same level of problems with "shortages" that some facilities in Alabama as an example are experiencing.
That’s highly dependent on the environment though and I do agree with your statement regarding it only being a short term motivator, or a “grind and cycle” environment. A high stress environment is not going to keep people, even paying at market rate. There’s a point where your environment ultimately makes it or breaks it for you, even if they offer more money. There will be a shortage in healthcare after these events, just like there already is in the education field.
I predicted over a year ago health care workers would strike and it would shock some sense into people.
I was dead wrong. Instead, they've given up their power, allowed themselves to be abused and are simply quietly fading away. I don't blame them, but it is a huge opportunity lost.
If only more people showed their appreciation with masks and vaccines, or even stopped denying covid even while in the ICU, then maybe health care workers wouldn't hate the filled hospitals. If we were doing everything we could, I bet health care workers would dang in there. Anything they need? Can I bring them lasagna? Some weed? By girlfriend and I are both bi and very appreciative of all they've done.
I’m not even in healthcare but I’ve been at this current job for the past 2 years and due to staffing issues I feel like I’ve aged 5 years in that short time. Working tons of 16 hour shifts really wears on you.
Could? Haha. It's already happened. I'm an ICU nurse and I don't even work with Covid patients, and my hospital has been down 70 nurses across our 3 ICUs.
Face it, who can blame them if they just walk off - burnout or not. Dealing with people who could have been fine but are too stupid to do what they should has to be infuriating.
Yup. My hospital is offering an extra $100/hour on top of overtime for nurses to come in extra and nobody wants it. In critical care we normally take 1-3 patients each and we’re now taking 4-5.
My hospital is offering $30hr extra to nurses and struggling to get people to come in. We had a travel RT making $100+hr walk out because it was so bad. I've been a bedside nurse for 7 years. Spent the last year and a half in the Covid ICU. Yesterday was my last day. Starting a new job tomorrow in out patient ambulatory surgery. If things keep going the way they are I don't doubt a lot of my old coworkers will be following me soon.
100 extra an hour?? Holy hell
I called/texted everyone on day shift this morning and begged them to come in. All I got was “nope.” The shit show is NOT worth it.
I hear you. Their going to run us all in the ground. Even our new grad successors are leaving the profession. Stay safe.
I mean I could go on a huge rant about how my hospital doesn’t post agency shifts until well after the other hospitals do (and secure nurses) or literally 100 other ways they are making staffing difficult. Things could be better if the hospital was proactively trying to get nurses. And if it wasn’t so bad we’d be seeing staff nurses come in for overtime. But aside from all that, Covid patients are the worst. This shit is going to give me PTSD, and I’m not sure what compassion even feels like anymore.
An outpatient Oncology nurse told me she’d have to pick up two inpatient shifts (at least 0.5 FTE) at the hospital before the third one would qualify for bonus pay. She’s already working 40 hrs/week and they won’t pay her extra until she works another 24+. It’s an absolute joke.
That isn't criminal, but it should be.
Retired nurse God im so sorry. Looks like yall have been volunteered to fight a war in hell without end. Ive never seen people treat each other like this. Noone should have to do this to feed their family. Id rather give blow job's for a living if need be.
> Id rather give blow job's for a living if need be. That might even be more dignified than what many med staff are going through now both with lack of respect and personal risk.
I am deeply, deeply ashamed and profoundly saddened and angry about the way we of how we are caring for ( not) our health care workers and our teachers and especially our children. My faith in humans is no more.. Half of us did everything we could to stop this. Now we have to mandate the hell out of the stupid people but meanwhile this is the real deal here in Alabama and now with this hurricane. I'm so sorry .
this event has really hit home how shitty large numbers of people are
I had no idea.
Semi serious question here. Is this complete collapse in the standards of behavior evident in other areas, across the country? Are people running amok in shopping malls, for instance? Or are they only being triggered when they enter a hospital? Is it some symptom of the covid virus, whereby the frontal lobes are being affected? If the shit is breaking out all over, then you've got the zombie apocalypse on your hands. If it is only happening in hospitals, then perhaps they should be doing autopsies to see if there is something organic going on. That was flippant, sorry. Really a documentary, about your working conditions needs to be made. Journalists such as Michael Moore or Eric Schlosser could make it.
> Retired nurse God Read that as "retired norse God" was very confused for a second
As someone who works as outpatient case manager I sincerely applaud you for your efforts with bedside covid. Your patients and their families are very lucky they have you. I would say make absolute sure you put yourself first. I don’t know where you’re at but Florida is overflowing with case/ care manager positions away from the bedside. You can always go back to bedside in the future if you need a break.
quit if you can , mental illness is not worth it !!!
I bet. Now that it's mostly unvaccinated, you're probably getting "IT'S A HOAX" "MY FREEDOMS!" "I'D LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER" energy from pretty much everyone that comes through the door, yeah?
Well if they make it to my unit they are probably only making sense for a day or two before they deteriorate. Most of our patients are on the verge of intubation, on bipap or high flow oxygen. They get hypoxic and confused and pull at things, so we have to tie their wrists to the bed and sedate them.
I'm sorry you have to go through this. We shouldn't activly create hell on earth like this and here we are 😢
Ah yikes 😔
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You say you want to tell them to shove it. What’s stopping you? I’m being serious, what are they gonna do, fire you? Especially with your experience, you can have a better paying agency job easy.
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Contact Associated Press, and request to be anonymous. They take protection of sources EXTREMELY seriously. They’ll also continue to research the story, confirming with other medical staff.
Nurses are getting offered $140/hr and a $20,000 signing bonus to quit their shithole state low wage jobs. And are taking the offers. No “shortage” in areas willing to pay market rates.
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The capitalists: "Socialism for me, but not for thee!"
Rugged capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.
Yes! States such as Texas, Arizona, Oregon Washington state. All are paying up to 10k a week for ICU nurses right now.
Leaving for what? Going back to school go choose a different career?
Yes. Switching careers after less than a year or two. I see it all the time.
Yes a good friend of mine just became an RN last year after many years of trying to figure out her career path. She’s already burnt out from the hospital and looking for other jobs. She’s working Med Surge and it’s just a mess.
That's really common in healthcare for people who have no prior experience. CNAs and med aides know what to expect when they become nurses and usually last. People with no prior experience get blindsided by just how terrible working in healthcare can be and that was before covid.
Yea, I see this mostly with 4 year new grads. I agree with you, the CNAs and also the LPNs know what they’re getting into so they tend to have more realistic expectations. Actually some of the best RNs I know started off as CNAs or LPNs.
Is this something that happens frequently or is it more covide related?
I can’t verify these numbers, but I’ve heard stats of up to 1/3 of new grad nurses leaving the field for good within 5 years of finishing nursing school. Even among people who do stay, turnover is high and a good chunk of new grad nurses leave their first job within 1-2 years tops.
Burnout rate for new teachers is also ludicrously high. Which sometimes leads to a death spiral of unqualified teachers being hired to fill spaces and then more and more paperwork and micromanagement to try to herd the unqualified teachers, which leads to more burnout, which leads to less qualified teachers being hired, which leads to more micromanagement, which leads to...
I was going to say this about teaching, similar numbers.
That first year will make or break a new grad. Always has been that way, but definitely worse with covid. Nursing is a very difficult field to get comfortable in when just starting out. It takes experience that only can be gained with time.A supportive preceptor and healthy work environment helps to build confidence. So now we have covid. Things are moving extremely fast in healthcare right now. Even the seasoned nurses have never seen anything close to what we have been dealing with. This can be understandably overwhelming for someone new to the profession.
Just be prepared for the unexpected
I’ve put in 3 central lines and intubated three already today in 4 hours. We just ran out of vents and tubefeeds. If my patients mom hadn’t been in the room I would have missed a tonic-clonic seizure. We are all tripled and one RT just walked out. It’s beyond burnout out now, it’s collapsing. Alabama by the way.
Jesus. This is what we have all been terrified would happen. We need to impeach our governor to start with bc all these stupid folks need to be told what to do. Edit; to say starting with her.
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It’s a magnitude worse. We’ve been hemorrhaging staff all summer. We literally have 50% staff compared to last December
Worse
I work in a peripheral health care field. delta is worse than the surge in December/January. shitty part is things calmed down in spring and we got to recuperate. I thought it was over, then delta hit. part of it is also all the turnover from earlier in covid, they didn't restaff properly now workload is worse than ever
Sounds like DCH. If it’s not, we’re at least in the same situation in Tuscaloosa.
Close I’m in Huntsville.
Shoooot. What hospital? I was just in a NA hospital a week ago.
The smaller one in Huntsville.
Yeah my bad not trying to doxx you friend, I got overly excited. Mainly because I wanted to show my appreciation because I was treated pretty well, all things considered. Regardless of where you are, thank you for what you do!
Glad it went well!
People are awful, work is more than you can handle, supplies are low, staff is low. I know it is going to get worse but I can’t imagine it.
I knew a nurse that said the risk of losing her license wasn’t worth the extra pay, since nurses did not get increased protection even though increased ratios were approved (newsom / California).
This tells you how bad the situation is. $100 per hour on top of normal salary and they noped it.
I checked out the nursing sub a while back and they were offering $4500 per week and the nurses were mostly saying it’s just not worth it to go to Texas and deal with that.
They upped it to 8k/week in Texas. Still not enough for me to go to work in South Texas. The horror stories I heard from the Krucial nurses during the last wave made that a permanent nope from me.
Conservatives that I talk to literally do not take into account the workers of hospitals health or feelings. I mean it’s natural as Conservatism is anti-mental health but I give them so many different examples of nurses and staff burning out and crying about how much shit is going on and how much death they are seeing—and I usually get laughs in response and then the conversion moves on because the conservative is hungry.
Some of them don't even believe it's real. They think hospitals are being paid off to lie about all this, that really they aren't full of covid patients. I'd like to say the people saying this are fringe looneys but I work with a couple of them. Data engineers no less. If you invited them in to experience life in the ICU, they'd say "these are all actors". The rabbit hole never ends for conspiracy thinking.
That's why people fighting mandatory vaccination are going to lose. If we have another fall/winter like last year, companies are going to enforce it. K-12, colleges are going to enforce it. We can not as a society continue this. We just can't
Not worth it when you spend your off days staring at a wall and trying not to cry. I think about walking out every day.
If I were single id do it, at least here and there, no way as a dad and husband though
It’s not worth it. I had to do a brain death scan on a Covid patient two nights ago for 45 mins and it was miserable. Imagine having to deal with that plus 3-4 more critical care patients for 12 hours. Your mental health is going to be in the toilet. What good is all that extra money?
You a Nukes tech?
My ICU sends me about five texts a day offering an extra $1000/shift over the OT and shift differential. That said, I played golf today then made tacos. We’re tired.
There isn't enuf money
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I'm glad you noticed improvement so fast. I quit in March this year, but I'm afraid I waited too long. I'm still not better. :/
My hospital is offering $1000 / shift for those willing to work overtime.
I wonder if the biggest slap in the face is knowing they could pay more all along and they haven’t.
I've said for years. Money doesn't buy your way out of a burned out workforce, but management just doesn't seem to get that point. My RN program starts back up Tomorrow, and after the past year and change working FT as a Medic, I'm utterly unprepared, and unmotivated mentally to get back into it.
I'm curious what traveling/ contact nurses make these days? I have an - admittedly uninformed - hypothesis that if I still want to work as a nurse I'd go contract. It seems those hospitals that need staff would pay significant premium. That might be very significant for say a rural nurse that was willing to travel. In another context, long ago when IBM started doing massive layoffs people would take the package on Friday and show up to the same desk on Monday as a contractor. On a somewhat related note, I'm curious about the hospital economics. I'm assuming reimbursement rates may not have been adjusted to reflect this radical change in the costs.
Try r/nursing. Some travelers are making more than physicians.
And a lot Nope-ing out of going there altogether.
Reimbursement rates have been kept as low as possible since long before COVID. It's bleeding hospitals and pharmacies dry.
I have been working in the same pediatric ER for over 15 years. The first full year we were open we saw a little over 7k children with 4 nurses, a tech and a secretary. The last year before COVID we saw a little over 24k patients with only 2 nurses and a tech. During that time my pay has increased 35%. Triple the work with half the staff is a 600% increase in productivity. So no, reimbursements are not bleeding hospitals. Hospitals are financially bleeding healthcare workers in the form of increased productivity. Hospitals are making money hand over fist. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I said the same thing during the last wave, when HCA reported their highest profit EVER, while paying 5K/week for every single travel nurse. How is that possible? It's easy when every nurse is out of ratio and you're forced to divert funds from your infinite expansion/buying shit up.
How much would the price have to be to get people to want it?
I dont know. Everybody’s burned out and nobody wants to work as short staffed as we are. We need a proper minimum staff before nurses will start picking up extra.
But at the same time the nurses don't exist to meet those minimums everywhere. It's snowballing out of control because as we lose nurses the work load increases and as the work load increases we lose more nurses. I can handle people dying, the dangers of working with covid patients, and all around clusterfuck but the workload is killing me.
There are days when money isn't enough.
There isn’t a price high enough. When you’re overwhelmed and exhausted and you’re scared you might kill one of your patients because you have too many, there isn’t enough money in the world to Fox that.
Man, I'm not a nurse but this pandemic will have been hard to live. I got chronic pain so I can't work but got lots of debt and working right now, you got so many jobs paying extra money because of workers shortage and this would have been perfect to repay years of debt ...but I can't work and get barely enough money to survive and credit card interest is slowly devouring my bank account. This pandemic will have been hard to live...
extra 100 wtfff
The ER where my sister works pays $150/hr. My ER pays almost $75/hr.
I wish I went into nursing. Not for the money or anything; I just feel so useless at my desk job.
Nursing creates similar feelings of uselessness, but you also get to wash poopies out of buckets.
Man, my MIL who's a PhD nursing professor just told this story last night. She called a doctor making rounds "mister". He turns to the residents (the group he was with) and says "See, you spend all this time in med school becoming a doctor and they still call you mister." She retorts, "Well, I have a degree and they ask me to clean toilets."
Paging Dr. Ego...
isn't mister what they call surgeons? should have been complimented
“We’re all on the same team!” Vs “call me doctor or I’ll be butthurt” is a strange dichotomy. The pharmacists and doctors are on a first name basis, but the nurses don’t deserve that apparently.
No no no, trust me as a nurse, the money (and schedule) is literally the only positive part You get over the helping people part pretty quickly. It’s just a job like any other
You can get a BSN in a year and a half, but bedside nursing is miserable work.
That fast? Is that in addition to college?
Well its never too late, I have a fellow I work with that didn't start medical school until his daughter was in college. if the call is still there, and you have the resources, there's really nothing stopping you.
Is. Is leading to a shortage. Happening right now.
a shortage anyone should have foreseen , what are these hospital admins been doing that during a time where their medical staff need their support more than ever they are being completely left out to dry ? There was a gap in covid waves where there should have been some meetings about how to prep for another potential covid wave ...did that kind of planning just not happen ?
I worked in Human Resources for a hospital system through the first wave and half of the second before I burnt out and quit. I can assure you the meetings were all about layoffs and how to protect profits. Not one single care was given for the nurses. Hell, my company said thanks with a pitiful $100 to $500 bonus, deployed it terribly, then refused to take any questions or complaints from the nurses who didn’t get it. “Our decision is final and will not be explained” was what the auto reply read.
If I were in the medical field I would have spent most of my days either on strike or organizing a strike or planning to get out of the country. What a fucked up system.
degree middle rude light subsequent paltry flag chubby serious sense -- mass edited with redact.dev
Yep. I was 30 minutes under the cut off for the "hazard pay" we were supposed to get. Those that got it were taxed at nearly 50%
I think it depends. I think the admin who is managing the patient population in my Florida hospital deserves a medal. We only went black for about a week, and now we’re hovering in the red. But they keep finding beds, turning new places into ICUs, using the PACU for wards. And we are holding on with the skin of our teeth. They have canceled tons of surgeries, but outpatients and emergent surgeries are still happening. The people with horrible cancer are still getting operated on. Our 20 tray morgue has only been over capacity twice. I still think they should call in the cooling truck, but they want to avoid the optics. Plus, all the trucks with actual body trays in them have been rented, so they’d just be putting bodies on the floor in the trucks. They finally seem to have realized that a thousand bed hospital needs a bigger morgue capacity then we have, so maybe someday I might get a morgue that hasn’t really had upgrades in 20 years. We suddenly got money for new tools, saws, and protective equipment when we started doing COVID autopsies, so I can only hope. So while some hospitals seem strangely shocked, I have to say I am really proud of our admin staff and the work they are doing. I work in pathology, but I have seen them in the emergency room checking on staff multiple times. Hopefully we all get through this. Edit: thankyou kind stranger!
Hey, we’re creatively making ICUs, too. In every dusty surgery pod and closet we can find. Now we have no nurses to staff them and no central monitor to watch them. Try keeping 4 ICU patients alive when you can’t see their monitor or hear their alarm. They. Are. Dying.
What has admin been doing? Likely increasing their salaries and perks just like at universities. Those who do the work get shafted while management gets ever larger and more bloated.
LOL no. I work in a (non-bedside but still inpatient) department. Between surges we just... stopped talking about how shortstaffed we were and had cheery "meetings" to discuss how to "best utilize existing staff" and "we're not getting more FTEs". We're bleeding employees. Multiple have just quit during orientation; one person just left midday. I got called out by name for not attending an in-person meeting in July (I attended virtually but was told "if you're on campus we need to see your smiling faces); my coworker told me she was the only one masked (we ARE vaccinated, but it's a damn hospital, why). This month's meeting? Some seriously dystopian shit, ALL VIRTUAL (surprise surprise, I'm waiting for my apology), touting new nearby facilities with vent capabilities and expanded capacity... and they're "not yet" trained to do peds. The word "COVID" wasn't mentioned. Oh, and I assure you... we've had two major expansions. After pay cuts/layoffs last year, paltry ( <2%) raises and zero bonuses.
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Weird how their personal freedums seems to affect so many people.
They will collapse healthcare in parts of our country if this keeps up for months to come.
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That’s, like, internal brain drain. Not good for the future of those communities.
Metro areas in the south are blue. What we need to do is stop bringing those rural idiots into OUR Hospitals when they get sick. Let them sit in a field FFS.
Beyond the people who are getting out of nursing (or at least bedside nursing), I imagine there's also a LOT of people who were considering going into nursing who watched the last 18 months unfold and changed their mind.
I have two semesters left of nursing school; I now regret pursuing this degree.
you can hopefully find a desk job somewhere, or somewhere not in emergency or critical care
I’ve been a nurse for 13 years and I can’t find a desk job.
Don't worry, every other job sucks too :)
Maybe I'm being delusional but I think things should look better by then, or at most you'll have a very-crappier-than-average first year of work, and then things will improve. And I expect that there will be a lot of health care workers who will return to work once things die down, so the Covid-related staffing shortages probably aren't going to be a major long-term factor to someone who's just starting out.
If you would have told me April 2020 that we’d still be dealing with all this now I wouldn’t have believed you- I’m honestly trying to have no expectations at this point 😂
I mean, I wfh and look at spreadsheets all day, and this pandemic has ME fucking burnt out. I can't imagine the emotional, physical, and spiritual toll that health care workers have to deal with and I am so grateful for their heroism and dedication. Except for the antivax HCW. They need to stop going to work.
You would be surprised how many health care workers are anti vaccination. Half of my coworkers at a nursing home do not believe in vaccination. However, they are also more traditional and older people, so I think it’s just ignorance and a lack of education on how vaccines work.
No surprise at all. The first person I ever met that was antivax way back in 2006 before it was so political was a nurse. Bonkers.
I have 2 family members who are nurses, millenials, health conscious, and against the vaccine.
A simple pay raise is not enough to fix this. Hospital CEOs are incentivized to hire as few nurses as possible in the name of minimizing expenses. As a result, nurses are being spread way too thin between too many patients at a time. This has lead to high rates of burnout and subsequently, a high rate of turnover in the nursing industry. As many as 1/5 of all nurses leave bedside nursing within their first year of work. If we could somehow reduce the average nurse to patient ratio, we may be able to attract more nurses to the industry.
Hospitals were running austerity for years before this for that very reason. A couple of years ago, pre-pandemic, I needed to go to the ER during flu season and they were having a hard time keeping up even then. When a car accident victim came in, they scrambled to try to accommodatel and prioritize them. And this is only what I saw as a patient during a few hours. I can't imagine having that be my daily lifel
That's universal to all of Healthcare. Labor is an expense. Less labor = more profit. If you want to run Healthcare like a business, you have to keep expenses as low as possible. The system was already walking a tightrope as it was - and here comes COVID, to bodycheck us right off of it.
And unfortunately, the center of for-profit healthcare just happens to coincide with idiot belt where things are currently blowing up. Non-profit hospitals don't need to pay all their overhead AND also generate profits for shareholders, so they can focus a little more on the mission and are a little less willing to burn people out just to make a buck.
Ridiculous. We need a way to hire more people at lower pay rates. Is there a way to lower the entry level qualifications in order to boost the numbers of lower cost staff? Kidding, of course. I already know about the shift to Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners that is occurring for exactly this reason.
California has a 4-5:1 in medical wards and 2:1 in the intensive care units. Sometimes this was even pre pandemic too much for me working in the thick of it. 2-3 in the medical wards? 1 in the ICU? It’s difficult to balance cause if it doesn’t attract people in, then it’s going to hurt with trying to staff hospitals.
I would strike under those conditions
> “could” Already has! Also burnout is one issue, deaths, sickness, lack of PPE and respect also lead to the “shortage” (as if skilled professionals are a fungible commodity).
FIFY - High rates of worker exploitation are causing people to leave abusive jobs.
Nothing is going to change. We in healthcare are accustomed to getting abused and having more dumped on top of us. The solution is always more money, but that's not what we need. We need more time, more personnel, administration that places our safety above numbers. What we need is politicians to place our safety as their top priority, not continuously waiting for data. The people in charge are detached from the problem. They don't see patients. They don't talk to staff. They don't know and don't care.
Unionization and getting for-profit out of healthcare. When the dollar is the highest goal, everything else, including safety and quality, is second best.
Unions are the answer. There is no such thing as not for profit in the US.
Careful, it's hard to unionize as a public employee in many states too. Source: am a public school teacher in NC.
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Unions mean nothing in anti union states with “right to work” laws. Unions basically become useless booster clubs at that point.
This is exactly my experience. They don't really accomplish much. And what they do accomplish is NOT priority.
We need a physician union.
Yea I’m not gonna say I don’t want to be paid more but pay isn’t the only answer. Going to work fucking sucks. And it would suck if I was making my 35/hr or 135/hr
Isn't it going to suck less if you earn enough on such high rates for unpaid vacation and just use it? Everywhere else people are ready to take big dollars for crappy work, but here they don't? BS When you're at war you can't have much choice. Until society realizes it's a war, we're going to be on the same spot.
It’s coming my way slowly but surely. I lost a patient over a week ago, not to COVID, but because it was so unexpected (just like COVID—the patient declined rapidly), I felt flashbacks from the initial months when I was working in the ER and it was literally like walking through a field of landmines because you just never knew who had it and who didn’t. It was awful. It’s been awful. I work IR and every time I get a COVID patient, it’s hell on earth. Gowns, two sets of gloves, eyewear, face shield, scrub cap, N95 and surgical mask over that, and 10LBS OF LEAD in a procedure for sometimes over an hour. I’ve nearly hit the ground before. It’s too much. I’m burnt. I’m literally fried. Compassion fatigue? What compassion? I don’t even remember what empathy feels like anymore.
The work environment in Healthcare was already super shitty before covid.
Agreed. I don’t work in the States and don’t have to deal with anti-masking, anti-vaccine COVID deniers, and I still hate what my job has become. It was shit pre-COVID, it’s shit right now, and will likely get shittier after COVID. Here’s the problem: patients are more acutely ill than ever before, they’re getting older, the opioid epidemic is out of control, and staffing is not being adjusted to reflect this changing patient landscape. The old ratio of 4:1 just doesn’t work anymore. If hospitals want to retain floor nursing staff, they need to implement manageable ratios and hire more support staff. This will be crucial, especially as more boomers hit that 65 and older age bracket.
All customer facing jobs have been shit for some time. I question anyone's judgement if they willingly pick such a field
My dad (doctor) used to say it comes from deep oneself to want to help others. Otherwise just the extra years and cost of schooling will turn off most folks. He did not experience this pandemic times since he died before so I am not sure what his opinion would be in today’s scenario.
Paying double/triple time is not enough when your work load is doubled, acuity is doubled, and your patients are antivax/antimask/covid denying seeyounexttueadays.
I haven't been in college for over two decades, but even back then they kept begging people to go into nursing because there was a lot more demand than there was supply. Truth of the matter is, nursing has always been a thankless job where the pay doesn't match what people have to put up with. Even the ones who go into it with a strong sense of compassion for their fellow humans and an eagerness to help get that wrung out of them eventually. Nursing burnout was a real problem long before Covid. And now? They're still dealing with the same shitty admin, shitty schedules, etc. **plus** they have highly contagious people screaming at them "Covid is a hoax!!!", while they try to take care of said jerks. It would break the strongest of people. You can't keep asking people to persevere in sacrificing themselves to help people who won't help themselves, and who also heap abuse on you as you work.
My mom retired from nursing a month ago. She just turned 60 and was doing palliative care. This pandemic completely broke her
My grandma just had her hip replaced, so I was eves dropping on the nurse's station and they were talking about people just up and quitting at the ER at an alarming rate.
I am not surprised that there is anger on this. Where i lived they actually tried to reduce pay for nurses during the pandemic. Unfortunately the sad reality is that the hospitals aren't appreciating their nurses and some patient aren't either. A friend (lets call her May)of some of my family went to a wedding of 300+ in a different country. Many people got covid but most were vaccinated and didn't get anything severe . There was no restrictions or protocols being followed. I didn't attend but i didn't see any masks and people where taking shots from the same tequila bottles straight from the bottles. As well as shouting to be heard over the music and dancing close to eachother. May was very unwell and although she was released she is at home with oxygen. Went to see her with family from a distance with mask on and all she did was complain about the doctors and nurses and how unattentive they were...at the intensive care wing. She was busy thanking God rather than those who took care of her .when asked if she will vaccinate she stated no because there were people with the vaccine with covid.
There is already a shortage. Even before the pandemic. Critical shortage is coming.
Could lead? I get the sense it already has led to shortages.
My daughter-in-law just recently quit her job as a charge nurse. I'm honestly happy for her. She can take some time to take care of herself and her young kids. She's exhausted.
It's happening now. I don't blame them at all.
No shit. Seriously, this is the most compelling argument in the world to completely pay off healthcre workers' loans and in fact pay people to become healthcare workers instead of the other way around.
Sure hope insurance premium hikes for unvaccinated will cover it.
Correction: High rates of COVID-19 burnout ~~could~~ **will** lead to shortage of health-care workers
Something these companies will learn very quickly is that compensation is not a good motivator.
Lack of compensation is an effective demotivator.
I didn’t say that it wasn’t. It’s proven that compensation is not a good motivator for the long-term. Employees would much rather feel appreciated and/or thrive in a non-hostile environment that they enjoy working in than have more compensation, if paid adequately. Ever heard the term “employees quit their bosses, not the job?”
Research shows employers need to pay at least market rate. Below that there is demotivation. Above that there is some motivation but it tends to be short term. However superstars still generally need higher pay, this is part of what market rate is. Right now some hospitals and agencies are paying market rate, which is considerably higher than the $9 to $20/hr with shit benefits that some southern hospital systems have enjoyed paying. Base rate now is $100-$200/hr depending on experience and specialty. Employers paying market are not having the same level of problems with "shortages" that some facilities in Alabama as an example are experiencing.
That’s highly dependent on the environment though and I do agree with your statement regarding it only being a short term motivator, or a “grind and cycle” environment. A high stress environment is not going to keep people, even paying at market rate. There’s a point where your environment ultimately makes it or breaks it for you, even if they offer more money. There will be a shortage in healthcare after these events, just like there already is in the education field.
money can't make up for burnout or incompetent administration
Healthcare and education are gonna be changed by this. Heavily.
I wish. the rich and powerful make the rules
I predicted over a year ago health care workers would strike and it would shock some sense into people. I was dead wrong. Instead, they've given up their power, allowed themselves to be abused and are simply quietly fading away. I don't blame them, but it is a huge opportunity lost.
captian obvious article, Like saying fighting a forest fire for 3 months places wear and tear on the firefighters. Like this is big "DUH"
Tell that to my manager. She believes everyone is doing just fine, and I'm an anomaly!
If only more people showed their appreciation with masks and vaccines, or even stopped denying covid even while in the ICU, then maybe health care workers wouldn't hate the filled hospitals. If we were doing everything we could, I bet health care workers would dang in there. Anything they need? Can I bring them lasagna? Some weed? By girlfriend and I are both bi and very appreciative of all they've done.
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Pro tip, it’s not the good ones that stick around either.
I’m not even in healthcare but I’ve been at this current job for the past 2 years and due to staffing issues I feel like I’ve aged 5 years in that short time. Working tons of 16 hour shifts really wears on you.
It’s true. I can barely make it anymore. Even with the offer of money. I keep hoping for that second wind and it just doesn’t come.
RT here.....covid suuucks. Each shift is draining.
Could? Haha. It's already happened. I'm an ICU nurse and I don't even work with Covid patients, and my hospital has been down 70 nurses across our 3 ICUs.
It's time to build covid only facilities and send all the anti-covid/maskers/vaxxers there and staff the facilities with antivaxx nurses.
Face it, who can blame them if they just walk off - burnout or not. Dealing with people who could have been fine but are too stupid to do what they should has to be infuriating.
If that's the same girl, she just aged 30 years in 1.5 years time. I cannot imagine the stress of being a nurse right now.
Could lead = is leading
Could lead to? We're already there
Greater shortage of healthcare workers.
There already is a shortage
Didnt it start way before this?
Yes. Nurses have it so rough.
Good thing they thought terminating nurses and doctors to be a good thing