Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job • Hacker News Board

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#101

Post by nimbius » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #15

AlexandrB wrote: post #8

Good for them. Despite the mantras of "support our frontline workers" many of these employees have been treated like shit by their employers[1], their government who refused to take measures to limit the spread, and their patients - some of whom will continue to actively deny COVID even as they die from it. [1] https://www.nwahomepage.com/knwa/mercy-employees-frustrated-...

If a company cares about you, it is shown in money. The People and Culture guy is a snake oil salesman meant to scam you.

maybe in tech companies but in more traditional roles like manufacturing and maintenance, its paid in respect for your time. Mandatory overtime is a real thing in the US and less of it means a stronger relationship with your employees. all the money in the world wont replace your weekends.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#102

Post by mikeyouse » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

twox2 wrote: post #32

aantix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes >but no investment in increasing hospital capacity Agree, where did all the billions go? The most expensive healthcare on the planet and we can't find the money to scale and expand a year and a half later.

I mean, every hospital director needs at least three vacation homes and two boats right?

We have this whole additional trillion-dollar industry that other countries don't .. nearly every dollar of our healthcare spending flows through insurance companies who add zero value to actual health care but have hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of billions in salary to pay.

Health insurers know their time in the crosshairs is coming which is why they're buying up pharmacy groups and providers, to give their offerings a sheen of actual care.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#103

Post by NineStarPoint » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

TheFreim wrote: post #70

nradov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complicated problem. Tired healthcare providers make more errors. But the majority of harmful errors happen in handing over patient care from one provider to another. Shorter shifts mean more care transitions. A patient in the ICU isn't like a truck that you can park and leave alone for 8 hours.

That's a really interesting point I'd never thought of before. Do you know of any discussions/articles on this topic? Would be interested to learn more, I always just assumed long doctor shifts was a combination of lack of workers and stinginess.

As a follow up question, I know I’ve read a lot about the handover issue in the general sense. Does anyone know of any research that has been done to see if the long shifts exacerbate the issue? It wouldn’t surprise me if handover would go more smoothly if the people weren’t at the end of such massive shifts, but it’s equally possible that intuition is wrong. What I don’t know is if there exist places where they tried shorter shifts in recent memory for us to even have the data on.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#104

Post by dageshi » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #75

dageshi wrote: post #47

All the people who hate the masks and hate the vaccines never really have any answer to this, what happens when the hospitals fill to capacity or the staff give up from exhaustion. No answers.

If I had to talk a wild guess, they give answers but you don’t listen or like the response. Hospitals are designed to run near capacity. It’s reported every winter in the UK that they’re near or over capacity. And outside of winter they’re just as busy. 12 hour shifts, asking ungodly things of staff is nothing new. Where was your haughty indignation during the last bad flu season? We have vaccines and had/have mask m…

Well I read the article and watched the video and the point is, many of the people coming into the hospitals now are unvaccinated by choice. They're quitting because the rate of admissions should be slowing and they should be getting a break after dealing with it for 12+ months, but they're not.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#105

Post by tehjoker » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #42

fer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission. More hospital beds just fights a constant. Doubling healthcare capacity roughly lasts for about 3 extra days if no other measure is in place. I'm all for improving healthcare, in the US or otherwise, but you just can't fire up and destroy healthcare resources like it's your k8s cluster.

> Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission Which trials demonstrated this?

All of them. Even if the breakthrough infections are the same as an unvaccinated person (still being studied, but I've heard everything from one third to same for the first six days), there are fewer infections overall. This causes a sharp average reduction in R0.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#106

Post by papito » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

muaytimbo wrote: post #87

vagrantJin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while the office TV is showing billionaires take off into space in personal rocket penises. Stripped of the emotional phraseology, I 100% agree with your point. There is something pointedly psychotic about flying rockets just because when your employees are not paid or treated fairly. But that's just psuedo "capitalism".

I assume we're talking about Bezos here, Amazon pays above the prevailing wage in most markets and if workers don't feel they are being treated fairly they have the choice to work elsewhere. Bezos is flying to space not "just because", he's flying to space in order to build another company we all might benefit from, like AWS or Prime. He's flying to space because he's earned it, by improving a lot of developers and c…

This fetishizing of the rich is exactly the problem. How dare these socialists take this wealth and give it to the unthankful moochers!

No one is talking about "punishing" the ultra-rich, but I would like to see them pay around my percentage tax rate, which is 28% - that's just Federal. I challenge you to find a wealthy person paying anywhere near that.

The top tax rate in the US, decades ago, was 90%. It effectively capped the wealth, preventing entities from becoming more powerful than the government (good luck with that anti-trust action), which had the added benefit of forcing them to reinvest the money into the business and wages.

What are the incentives now? The IRS is gutted. White collar crime, outright fraud. Profit, ruin a company, walk away with untaxed riches. No one is looking.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#107

Post by MattGaiser » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

bigmattystyles wrote: post #79

pavel_lishin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underplaying non-financial incentives. I would rather have a job that pays $X but offers flexible work hours and vacation time that allows me to be a better parent, than a job that pays $1.5X but won't let me take a day or afternoon off to (e.g.) take my kid to the doctor, etc. Granted, that probably applies more to WFH desk jobs than front-line nurses.

An RN I know in New Orleans makes a paltry $28 / hour. Insidiously, they gave her 10k upfront for a 3 year contract. If she leaves, she has to give it back. She put it straight to her student loans so now she’s stuck there. I agree with op, we say we love our front line workers, but that’s just talk. I’m not sure but there’s not much of a union for them down there.

Just ask for a signing bonus at the next job. Definitely heard of signing bonuses that size with agencies for nursing.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#108

Post by hourislate » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

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Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#109

Post by ssully » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

TheFreim wrote: post #94

goodells wrote: post #7

I am an EMT and talk to a lot of nurses, PAs, and physicians in various circles. This wave is worse for a few reasons. - Healthcare staff have great animosity towards the unvaccinated patients. They aren't victims here, they did this to themselves. Nobody can muster any more compassion, especially for these people. Patients and people at large, not even just the total-nutjob anti-vaxxers, are tired of restrictions. "…

> Healthcare staff have great animosity towards the unvaccinated patients. They aren't victims here, they did this to themselves. That seems strange to me considering there are TONS of diseases that are completely the victims fault. Diabetes, heart diseases, lung issues, etc can all be caused because someone chose to make unfortunate decisions. Why would you get into a profession where you're in contact with this kin…

Because those conditions are more complex; there is some choice, but it's not the full picture. Those conditions don't overflow the hospitals either. In the United States, any adult could get the vaccine for free for months now, and these patients chose not to. I fully understand why a healthcare worker would be struggling with empathy at a time like this.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#110

Post by syshum » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

Rd6n6 wrote: post #3

There are discussions of a strike where I live because the province is trying to cut nursing total comp by about 5% https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/mobile/when-is-the-strike-vote-fa...

The joy's of Government Healthcare.

No one wants to pay more taxes, No one wants healthcare workers get less money, No One wants substandard care..

You can not have All 3, More Care, and More Pay requires more Taxes... Canadian's however do not want to pay more Taxes.