The Nursing Profession is in jeopardy.

[liberalnurse]

I have included an Ohio Health Care Survey conducted in 1999-2000 where we only thought our roles and responsibilities were bursting at the seams.....

but now, with the economy of this *bush administration, we are a ruptured artery which is hemorrhaging.

Here is how we saw our nursing system then, in 1999-2000:

http://www.ohnurses.org/surveyreport.htm

<snip>

Perhaps the most resounding effect has been an increase in the patient care load for nurses. Eighty-four percent (84%) of the nurses surveyed indicate that their patient load has grown in the last few years. Almost 70% said that the number of patients assigned to all RNs in their unit has grown. The result, according to these nurses, is less time spent tending to the needs of each patient under their care. Three-quarters (75.5%) of the respondents replied that the time available for delivering direct patient care has decreased.

In addition, 85.5% of the nurses report that the acuity of the patients under their watch has increased, leading nurses to conclude that their working conditions are taking a toll on them and the quality of patient care in Ohio is in jeopardy.

As might be expected the nurses have felt an increased pressure to accomplish their work (77.1%), they have skipped meals and breaks to keep up with their patient care (87.15%), they need to work overtime – sometimes involuntarily (37.35%) – and one-in-ten have suffered a personal injury on the job.

Almost two-thirds of the nurses surveyed say that they leave work at the end of their shift feeling "exhausted and discouraged" and 58.6% report that they leave "saddened by what they could not provide for their patients."

Beyond the impact that the changing health care system has had on the nurses themselves, the RNs responding to the ONA's Health Care Survey show significant concern about the well-being of their patients. Forty percent, in fact, say they are "frightened for their patients." They add that "staffing is inadequate" (70%), that there is a delay in response time to patient calls for assistance (66.7%), that significant patient symptoms are missed due to inexperienced staff (33.7%), and that there is an increase in the incidents of medication errors (30.5%).

Perhaps the most telling statistic of all is that half of the nurses responding to this survey say that they could not feel comfortable having someone close to them receive care in their facility (49.4%); with 46.2% saying they would feel comfortable. (4.2% did not respond).

The responding nurses show support for several ways they can address the concerns they have for their patients and themselves. About a third of the respondents checked each of the following: Union representation (33%), whistle-blower protection (27%) and workplace committees (38%). Nearly three-quarters, however, supported passing legislation that ensures safe staffing and quality care.


//////

This has only become worse....I know from personal experience. When I calculate the time to perform a nursing bedside task of the all the required duties per each patient on the patient load assignment say a total of 10 in the hospital and 45 in a long term facility...it is obvious that all can't be done properly within an 8 or 12 hour shift even when done half-assed. It is impossible to do our job! Nurses are exhausted!

This *bush administration has broke our backs. I am trying to get nurses to unionize everywhere. Maybe this time they feel the pain.

[burythehatchet]

1. The answer lies in Universal Health Care

I work in long term care and I dread the thought of how we are going to care for the boomers when medicare is forced to collapse

[liberalnurse]

2. It is a start......

I'm afraid this *bush administration has made the corporate backers of *bush too powerful.

Such as the hospital groups....

If you have noticed many of the hospitals in a city are under the same corporation, less competion...the insurance companies cut like a knife as well as the pharmaceutical companies gouging even the dead.

Nurses have made their bed, no coffin and now may have to lie in it... I say Union!

My solution has been to finish my Nurse Practitioner Program and be self employed. Also, I fight for nursing issues with Ohio Nursing Association and American Nursing Association but.....I must survive too.

[iverglas]

4. union!

I just read the other day that nurses in the US are not unionized, and couldn't believe my eyes.

Hell, even doctors are unionized here. ;)

No, not technically -- doctors are almost all private entrepreneurs, certified by the provincial Colleges of Physicians (self-governing professional bodies), but most belong to the provincial Medical Associations, which represent their interests in bargaining fee schedules with the provincial (universal, public, single-payer) health plans.

You might be interested in Canadian nurses' unions, and here's a handy site that links to all of them (as well as to the Colleges of Nurses):
http://www.nurse.ca/Organizations/Canadian/index.phtml
-- they're intermingled there: some are unions, some are professional-interest bodies, some are the professional governing bodies.

The unions took a fairly tough stand on protecting their members during the SARS outbreak in Toronto, for instance. And Canadian nurses have indeed gone on strike. But after extended rounds of cut-backs in the Canadian health care/hospital systems by right-wing governments in the last decade and more, nurses here are experiencing problems similar to yours.

Keep in mind that "administrative costs" in the US healthcare system are almost double what they are in the Canadian -- something like 31% vs. 16.7% of total spending -- and imagine what that money could do if the efficiencies of a non-profit single-payer system were achieved. ;)

.

[yankeedem]

17. Many nurses in North Jersey are unionized

My wife's union starts her at $27/hr, and union's have fought for things like the mandatory staffing laws that the governor recently signed.

[maveric]

7. Nurses that I work with here in San Diego will not unionize.

They say that unions are evil mafioso-run organizations that just take your money and force you to strike and lose your job. And if there was a union at this facility the higher wages and benefits would not be affordable to the employer and they would have to shut down, and we'd lose our jobs.

These people have been brainwashed by the conservative media here in the southland.

If anyone says the "U" word in front of an administrator, they would most likely terminate them. I've seen it happen.

[liberalnurse]

14. It is the same in Ohio.

I just can't understand the fear nurses have about unionization. Really, if we were a nation of unionized nurses, we would be the most powerful voice in this country.

[Malva Zebrina]

16. It has been the same for almost fiftyyears

my patient load was always pushed to the max,I almost always left feeling exhausted .

As for unions, I think that is probably the best way to protect yourself and your own health. Nurses do not have to "give" of themself until their backs are broken.

Years ago,in the days of the three years hospital schools, nurses were given courses in ethics that taught they, as nurses, could not unionize or, worse yet, strike because they had an "obligation" to their patients. Many simply bought that "glorification" of their role. As a bright eyed young nurse, I was one of them . I do not know what they are taught in ethics courses these days.

[HootieMcBoob]

23. My mother worked in a hospital and was against forming a union

They tried to start a union for about 10 years. The hospital management was always against it but eventually the workers got their union.

My mother joined and instantly saw better benefits and pay. Younger people got a pension.

If my mother, who retired shortly after that, had not fought the union so much and they had started the union a decade earlier she would have retired with a good pension. As it was she retired with nothing but a small monthly social security check to keep her going until she died and she regretted not supporting the union earlier.

The management of these hospitals does not care about anything but profit. Now, more than ever unions are extremely important for hospital workers.

[liberalnurse]

3. The elderly are being viewed as a product

and not as human beings. I detest long term care services! They deserve so much more! Inmates at the prisons get 300% better health care. I speak the truth here!

[Habibi]

10. Which is why I'm thinking of bypassing becoming "elderly"

and just doing a pleasant "final exit."

I really don't want to suffer.

[TahitiNut]

5. The health care "industry" is FUBAR

With the death of my stepfather and hospitalization and nursing home 'rehabilitation' of my mother, I've become acutely aware of the abysmal condition of health care in this country. We had the "best" -- and it's beyond frightening to consider how bad the average or worst could be. The 'patient' is a cash cow to the mindless bureaucracy -- to be milked by the organizational robots. The disconnect between the paper fiction and the patient reality is wide and deep.

What I repeatedly encountered were 'direct care' personnel who were required to engage in procedures and practices that seemed intentionally designed to disconnect them from the patients, with supervisory personnel apparently selected for their uncanny ability to remain unseen and isolated in paperwork foxholes, obviously clueless regarding the ongoing acute care needs of the patients.

My mother was apparently suffering from walking pneumonia for weeks in the nursing home -- being 'diagnosed' as suffering from senile dementia instead of properly assessed as the delirium caused by the pneumonia. This went totally undiagnosed until one morning when it occurred to me upon hearing my mother cough that such a diagnosis would explain the disconnect I was seeing. I had to instruct the staff myself to perform the basic tests: temperature, listen to lungs, chest X-ray. They did so and, due to positive results of those tests, within 4 hours my mother was undergoing treatment for viral pneumonia. All this despite the fact that she was being "seen" by nearly a half-dozen health "professionals" each day -- apparently for billing purposes only.

[noonwitch]

6. My mom retired from nursing recently, and she said she'd never choose that

career in this day and age, she'd be a PA as they make more money and have more independence. She started out working at hospitals, then went to work in a doctor's office, where she worked for 30 years. When the old doctor retired, his bitch daughter took over the practice and started getting rid of all full time employees, so she wouldn't have to pay benefits. She squeezed my mom into taking an early retirement. The father was a good doctor who like to make money from his work, but he also cared about his patients' health and progress, too.

[Malva Zebrina]

21. that is the primary reason I left the field after thirty five years

I could not stand the system--the "patient" turned into a "client" and the bottom line was not concern over care but concern over profit. It became so blatantly obvious to me and quite disgusting.

Nursing homes are the worst thing that we can think of to do to our elderly in my opinion.

If anyone has a problem similar to what Tahiti Nut describes, I would suggest you go straigt to the top--overlook all the local staff including the nursing director, find out which doctor is assigned to your loved one and call the doctor and speak to him directly about the care your loved one is receiving. After that, call the director of the home or the administrator and make a formal complaint, in writing. Nursing home abuse has been rampant--over many many years.

[Wapsie B]

8. It's not just nurses

in peril, although being the most visible health profession next to doctors they get the most media attention. Healthcare professionals of all stripes deal with these same conditions.

[GinaMaria]

9. I left the profession

I miss the patient contact. I don't miss anything else. The patient contact wasn't enough to keep me. My current work doesn't have as much meaning, but there's no heartbreak, and no abuse from every direction. I've kept my license, but I never want to go back.

[tedoll78]

12. I'm in medical imaging school (clinicals) right now.

The best part, to me, is making a patient feel better. Hearing "thanks," seeing a smile, realizing that you've alleviated some of their fear.. it's soooo worth it.

One lady had a t-spine injury, and I had to take some portable x-rays of her. I was as gentle as possible with her, since any movement seemed to put her in a lot of pain, and when I was done, she grabbed my hand, held it, and thanked me for being so gentle. Now, this could be that I'm still new and excited about being in this profession, but that just about made my semester. Later on, I thought about it and got misty-eyed. It was a wonderful, wonderful moment.

My sister is becoming a nurse (graduates from Louisiana State U in May), and I worry about her getting too stressed.

[anarchy1999]

13. Cheers to you.

n/t

We need many more people that feel good about what they do to earn a living. It has to be tough. Lots of respect and admiration coming your way.

[liberalnurse]

15. I have heard that from many nurses.

[anarchy1999]

11. Has been for a long time.

Not something that just happened recently.

Personal experience, many nights in hospital, with members of my family, mom, dad and grandparents, with grandparents being swallowed up in the system. Ugly memories.

[Enraged_Ape]

18. Health care personnel of all specialties are spread far, far too thin

Therapists and nurses...yes, even doctors...are feeling the heat like never before. It's horrible (and horribly scary for patients) what they are expected to do today in order to generate maximum revenue at minimum cost.

I was a hospital-based physical therapist until a few months ago, when I just couldn't do it anymore. I loved the contact with the patients and the other personnel, but as far as I was concerned, whatever joy I had in being a caring professional was absolutely sucked out by the worship of the bottom line.

[Disturbed]

19. A Travesty

My wife is an RN. It is awful how nurses are overloaded with patient care. The stress level is high and that causes mistakes. The Mgmt. just keeps pushing and now it's "fast food" nursing care. It's profits now before real patient care and Mgmt. and Admins are at fault. Many nurses are leaving hospital care and going to other places. Kaiser is one of the the worst. I feel bad for the patients, as well. This society is being run into ruin by the present scum in power.

[masshole]

20. Two nurse household

My wife has been an RN for about 17 years.
I have just been accepted in the RN program at our local CC in the fall.
One of the main reasons we support John Kerry:

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/nurses/

Priorities
End Mandatory Overtime

Ensure Safe Staffing Levels

Combat the Nursing Shortage

Comprehensive Whistle Blower Protection

Strong and Enforceable Rules for a Safe and Healthy Workplace

Fighting for the Right to Choose a Union

Reduce Medication Errors and Stop the Scapegoating of Nurses

Protect Nurses from Workplace Violence

Support Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs)

[Tripper11]

22. Nurses deserve more then they get!

I was sick for a length of time with leukemia. One thing I figured out really quickly, for all the doctors that worked on my case, if it wasn't for the excellent nursing, I don't know how I could have made it through.
With the exception of their actual nursing duties, they would come in my room and hang out and talk for 15 or so minutes. JUst shooting the breeze about the days news or something else. Their going out to parties or whatever...just away from medical talk.
BUT, then there were lots of times when my wife coulnd't be there during critical information gathering sessions and my nurses were right there listening, translating (medical jargon to lamen terms) and helping me relay the information to my wife so we could make informed decisions on my care.
Nurses kick serious ass and deserve a helluva lot more credit then they get. Doctors would be no where with out nurses!