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

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#191

Post by vagrantJin » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #159

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".

> flying rockets just because Hmmm... the Wright brothers flew airplanes "just because" and now we have relatively cheap, ubiquitous air travel. I'm happy to see Bezos and Musk investing in space travel - I think the end-result will be a positive for human civilization.

You telling me the guy who owns a company that can deliver my toaster faster is in the same league as the guys who pioneered the aeroplanes that changed the course of human history?

You are trolling me hermano. Woe to the Wright Brothers. Bless them. Their work reduced to Alexa's boo thing

Positive for human Civilization? Those few thousand Amazon shareholders are the beneficiaries on humanity's behalf? Bless them too. I suppose we can make a few more millionaires get into the 9 figure club. Trickle down economics right?

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#192

Post by zsmi » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #91

armchairhacker wrote: post #28

I've never worked as a nurse or doctor but it's hard to imagine what they go through. Every day they deal with people in serious pain, people with traumatic injuries, rude people, rude people with traumatic injuries, screaming children and babies. Apparently nurses in particular are also routinely disrespected by higher-ups, put in danger by higher-ups, and don't get paid much. In college I heard insane stories from…

> Apparently going on shifts working 72+ hours non-stop is the norm. Absolutely not and it’s insane to even think that could be true.

It depends what one means by "shift".

For example my brother-in-law is a firefighter. He spends 3/4 days straight in the firehouse and then comes home for 3/4 days and works something like 12 hours straight when he is on call and gets rest periods when not actually doing firefighter work. This is possible because the firehouse basically has a small dorm in it. When I ask him when he is going to work he says he has a three day shift coming up. Because he doesn't come home, my sister definitely considers it "non-stop".

I can easily imagine health care workers being on-site for a few days at some sites, like a firefighter. Especially in areas where commutes could be prohibitive.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#193

Post by adolph » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #156

adolph wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also smokers? Also drunk drivers who wreck? Also people who abuse drugs? Also people without documentation? Also those who don't accept blood letting? Also people who make bad decisions?

Your freedom stops at others immune systems. Think of this as a choose your own adventure. And if you don't wish to be vaccinated or wear a mask you are opting into the road less traveled. What's with all this negativity? But smoke all you want, they already factor that into health insurance costs. Drive drunk all you want, but don't whine if you get caught and they throw you in jail and take away your car and licens…

> Drive drunk all you want, but don't whine if you get caught and they throw you in jail and take away your car and license.

Do you think a person who sustained an injury while they were intoxicated and needs medical treatment "get zero health insurance coverage?" Would it matter if they were at fault?

Do you think a person who made a poor life decision "get zero health insurance coverage?"

> What's with all this negativity?

My questions aren't negative or positive. Their purpose is to think through the idea you proffered. If you didn't wish for people to think through this, why would one enter a comment?

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#194

Post by roel_v » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

armchairhacker wrote: post #28

I've never worked as a nurse or doctor but it's hard to imagine what they go through. Every day they deal with people in serious pain, people with traumatic injuries, rude people, rude people with traumatic injuries, screaming children and babies. Apparently nurses in particular are also routinely disrespected by higher-ups, put in danger by higher-ups, and don't get paid much. In college I heard insane stories from…

"Apparently going on shifts working 72+ hours non-stop is the norm."

C'mon, that's 3 straight days, i.e. skipping 2 nights. How can that be 'the norm' anywhere? Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence - or in this case, just any evidence.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#195

Post by MarkLowenstein » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

Did they walk off the job in December and January, when they had higher than the current numbers of infection for 2 months straight?

CNN is highlighting this non-unique situation to dump on a hated "red" state. Will they be there in a week, when "blue" Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii all have bigger numbers than they've ever seen? Those states all social-distanced themselves into ripe fruit, ready for picking by the more contagious Delta variant.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#196

Post by arp242 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #26

MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

That's all very good; I genuinely agree with it, and I think it applies to nurses too (schedules etc. permitting).

But it doesn't work if you're struggling to make ends meet. There are hospital workers who don't have health care because they can't afford it for example.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#197

Post by davak » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

EricRiese wrote: post #150

The graph shown when talking about daily cases exploding was a graph of cumulative hospitalizations with the y-axis not starting at 0, to make an increase from 360k to 380k look like a tripling. Do better CNN.

I hate chart hacking. However, cases are up over 130% in the last two weeks. Hospitalizations up 80%. (1) The surge is unfortunately real.

(1) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#198

Post by yobbo » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #171

yobbo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unvaccinated covid cases will get zero health insurance coverage Most unvaccinated are probably already without health insurance. Vaccination essentially follows socio-economic status, and has the lowest density in blacks and hispanics. Going door-to-door, or "vaccination buses", or things of the line might help.

We have a terrible national heritage here and I understand the reluctance. But this isn't how we handled smallpox or polio. There really isn't any other option than vaccination given that coronaviruses can reach up to 35% fatality (1). We are extremely lucky right now that the current fatality rate (IFR) is hovering around 1%. That could change. Or if there is another option, what is it? We are a year and a half into…

I think the USA made the mistake of using the communication channels from the health authorities for political purposes. Trust in authorities is weakened and the effectiveness of their communications is now low. Every day they continue this they make it worse. It seems that spokesmen have had mixed stakes beyond being responsible for peoples' health.

There might be some progress if the authorities somehow "repented" and became trustworthy. There's probably a lot going on at the local level where the communication and organization is happening that I can't speak to.

At the moment, this seems to be coming to an end in western Europe. The majority of unvaccinated are young, and many have had covid. Delta variant is spreading covertly without causing much symptoms or illness, so few people are getting tests. If it can't be stopped, it might be preferable that it spreads during the summer. No one knows what happens this winter, but the outlook seems good.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#199

Post by koonsolo » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #14

All the lockdowns started because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospital system. In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes. Our politicians have decided it's better to play world police and kill people overseas than invest in community hospitals. All the billions handed out to the vaccine companies and the propaganda machines, but no investment in increasing hospital capacity. T…

You seriously think you can scale number of hospital beds at an exponential rate?

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#200

Post by varelse » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #180

varelse wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a terrible national heritage here and I understand the reluctance. But this isn't how we handled smallpox or polio. There really isn't any other option than vaccination given that coronaviruses can reach up to 35% fatality (1). We are extremely lucky right now that the current fatality rate (IFR) is hovering around 1%. That could change. Or if there is another option, what is it? We are a year and a half into…

this is fear mongering. The fatality rate of COVID, even at the beginning of the pandemic when we didn't even have proper metrics, was never measured to be more than about 7-8%, which is very high, but not 35%. The paper you cite is about a hypothetical. Stop with the fear mongering.

The IFR seems to be about 1% now that we a have a lot of data, and a bit higher in the US. But that could change or are you asserting it won't? And are you completely unconcerned about new variants? We'll have to disagree on that. The Delta variant has saturated ICUs again, no problemo I gather?

And you're misrepresenting the paper. It doesn't claim 35% fatality, it cites the 35% fatality of MERS, a distantly related coronavirus and the 10% fatality of the original SARS pandemic, a closer related virus (1), both mostly settled science, as potential upper bounds of what variants could emerge if we don't get this under control.

Viruses evolve to do one thing: make more virus particles. If there is a gain of function that increases the fatality rate then so be it. Usually they become less deadly because that makes them spread more effectively but there are exceptions. It's comforting to assert that it's impossible for a virus to evolve to become more deadly but it's also false.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7718587/