a322x1n
2021-10-12 03:55:01 UTC
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/treat-us-better-nurses-flee-hospi
tal-jobs-because-working-conditions-aren-t-safe/ar-AAPn1ya?ocid=msedgdhp&
pc=U531>
<https://tinyurl.com/35e3nb9f>
'Treat us better': Nurses flee hospital jobs because working conditions
aren't safe. Bonnie Castillo, 17 hrs ago.
Listening to hospital executives lament the "nursing shortage" is beyond
infuriating.
Nurses know the United States is not feeling a true nursing shortage,
only a shortage of nurses willing to risk their licenses or their
patients lives by working in unsafe conditions.
Except for a few states, plenty of registered nurses are available to
meet this countrys needs, according to a 2017 U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services report on the supply and demand of the nursing
workforce from 2014 to 2030.
Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each
morning.
Some states will even have too many. But when hospitals understaff units
and shifts to maximize profits leaving nurses with morally distressing
choices about how to allocate care its no surprise many of us make
the difficult decision to leave.
The hospital keeps saying, We appreciate you, but we are not seeing
any action, said Maggie Webb, a registered nurse at the University of
Chicago Medical Center's pediatric intensive care unit.
Opinions in your inbox: Get a digest of our takes on current events
every morning.
She will lose half a dozen colleagues in the coming weeks, as poor
working conditions drive nurses away.
We are basically being told to just grin and bear it, and hope for the
best and hopefully nothing bad happens to our patients," Webb said.
"Thats not fair to them. This is our livelihood, this is our lives, and
we are putting our nursing licenses at risk because of staffing.
Bare-bones staffing even before COVID.
Long before the pandemic, hospitals staffed at bare-bone levels to
maximize profit, rather than at the level needed to safely care for
patients and the severity of their conditions.
The pandemic took the unsafe staffing to nightmare levels.
In late August, registered nurses in the emergency department at
Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, reported shifts with more
than 20 patients assigned to one staff nurse and one charge nurse (who
should be a resource, not have a full patient load).
We sometimes have patients overflowing the lobby, waiting ridiculous
hours to be triaged, examined and treated. But we have to fight every
step of the way to get the hospital to staff up for these patients,
said Mawata Kamara, an emergency department registered nurse at San
Leandro Hospital in San Leandro, California.
COVID and erectile dysfunction: Here's another good reason for men to
get vaccinated.
Employers often act like nurses are interchangeable cogs, regardless of
our area of expertise. At Research Medical Center in Kansas City,
Missouri, medical/surgical nurses report being overwhelmed with six
patients at once, some of them too critical for that unit.
A lot of these patients, we don't have the expertise to care for on my
floor, let alone when they're one of six patients, said research RN
Zoe Schmidt. It has happened multiple times that nurses, and even
doctors, have expressed concern about patients needing a higher level of
care than my unit, only to be told by the house supervisor that there's
no open beds anywhere else.
Since Day One of COVID-19, nurses have told our managers to prepare for
predictable staffing needs, including hiring and training more nurses,
and cross training nurses to work in critical care departments. They
didnt listen.
Our employers play games with their available staffing pool to slash
labor costs including sending nurses home who have reported for their
shifts, canceling nurses who are scheduled to work on a daily contract
basis, laying off staff from units with a temporarily low patient
census, canceling traveling nurse contracts, and failing or being
extremely slow to hire for open positions.
In states where its still allowed, our employers also impose mandatory
overtime on nurses.
Nurses faced with impossible choices
When employers force us to make impossible choices between patients,
during 12-hour shifts with no time to eat or use the bathroom, is it any
wonder nurses leave?
We have a simple, effective solution for encouraging nurses to return to
providing the direct patient care we desperately need during this
pandemic: Treat us better!
Ensure safe working conditions, including enough staff on every shift,
and implement all the measures of infection control that we need to
protect ourselves and our patients.
Meanwhile, dont pretend the staffing crisis was inevitable or
unavoidable due to COVID-19. Hospitals manufactured this crisis.
Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse, is executive director of National
Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the United
States, with more than 175,000 members.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other
writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in
our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment
to ***@usatoday.com.
Marc Murphy, USA TODAY Network.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Treat us better': Nurses
flee hospital jobs because working conditions aren't safe.
tal-jobs-because-working-conditions-aren-t-safe/ar-AAPn1ya?ocid=msedgdhp&
pc=U531>
<https://tinyurl.com/35e3nb9f>
'Treat us better': Nurses flee hospital jobs because working conditions
aren't safe. Bonnie Castillo, 17 hrs ago.
Listening to hospital executives lament the "nursing shortage" is beyond
infuriating.
Nurses know the United States is not feeling a true nursing shortage,
only a shortage of nurses willing to risk their licenses or their
patients lives by working in unsafe conditions.
Except for a few states, plenty of registered nurses are available to
meet this countrys needs, according to a 2017 U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services report on the supply and demand of the nursing
workforce from 2014 to 2030.
Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each
morning.
Some states will even have too many. But when hospitals understaff units
and shifts to maximize profits leaving nurses with morally distressing
choices about how to allocate care its no surprise many of us make
the difficult decision to leave.
The hospital keeps saying, We appreciate you, but we are not seeing
any action, said Maggie Webb, a registered nurse at the University of
Chicago Medical Center's pediatric intensive care unit.
Opinions in your inbox: Get a digest of our takes on current events
every morning.
She will lose half a dozen colleagues in the coming weeks, as poor
working conditions drive nurses away.
We are basically being told to just grin and bear it, and hope for the
best and hopefully nothing bad happens to our patients," Webb said.
"Thats not fair to them. This is our livelihood, this is our lives, and
we are putting our nursing licenses at risk because of staffing.
Bare-bones staffing even before COVID.
Long before the pandemic, hospitals staffed at bare-bone levels to
maximize profit, rather than at the level needed to safely care for
patients and the severity of their conditions.
The pandemic took the unsafe staffing to nightmare levels.
In late August, registered nurses in the emergency department at
Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, reported shifts with more
than 20 patients assigned to one staff nurse and one charge nurse (who
should be a resource, not have a full patient load).
We sometimes have patients overflowing the lobby, waiting ridiculous
hours to be triaged, examined and treated. But we have to fight every
step of the way to get the hospital to staff up for these patients,
said Mawata Kamara, an emergency department registered nurse at San
Leandro Hospital in San Leandro, California.
COVID and erectile dysfunction: Here's another good reason for men to
get vaccinated.
Employers often act like nurses are interchangeable cogs, regardless of
our area of expertise. At Research Medical Center in Kansas City,
Missouri, medical/surgical nurses report being overwhelmed with six
patients at once, some of them too critical for that unit.
A lot of these patients, we don't have the expertise to care for on my
floor, let alone when they're one of six patients, said research RN
Zoe Schmidt. It has happened multiple times that nurses, and even
doctors, have expressed concern about patients needing a higher level of
care than my unit, only to be told by the house supervisor that there's
no open beds anywhere else.
Since Day One of COVID-19, nurses have told our managers to prepare for
predictable staffing needs, including hiring and training more nurses,
and cross training nurses to work in critical care departments. They
didnt listen.
Our employers play games with their available staffing pool to slash
labor costs including sending nurses home who have reported for their
shifts, canceling nurses who are scheduled to work on a daily contract
basis, laying off staff from units with a temporarily low patient
census, canceling traveling nurse contracts, and failing or being
extremely slow to hire for open positions.
In states where its still allowed, our employers also impose mandatory
overtime on nurses.
Nurses faced with impossible choices
When employers force us to make impossible choices between patients,
during 12-hour shifts with no time to eat or use the bathroom, is it any
wonder nurses leave?
We have a simple, effective solution for encouraging nurses to return to
providing the direct patient care we desperately need during this
pandemic: Treat us better!
Ensure safe working conditions, including enough staff on every shift,
and implement all the measures of infection control that we need to
protect ourselves and our patients.
Meanwhile, dont pretend the staffing crisis was inevitable or
unavoidable due to COVID-19. Hospitals manufactured this crisis.
Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse, is executive director of National
Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the United
States, with more than 175,000 members.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other
writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in
our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment
to ***@usatoday.com.
Marc Murphy, USA TODAY Network.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Treat us better': Nurses
flee hospital jobs because working conditions aren't safe.