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The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

theguardian.com

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Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#21
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not surprised. Healthcare costs have been rising faster than inflation for several years. It's a difficult sell to increase budgets, so we have to resort to these "invisible" cost cutting measures to try and stay afloat.

> rising faster than inflation for several years Over here in Canada healthcare spending has been rising faster than general inflation more or less continuously since the 1960s. Seems to be generally true of many wealthy countries. More tech and therapies. And an ageing population. And probably other factors. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Health_care_cost_r...

Salaries probably pay factor as well? Check the sunshine list, plenty of radiologists making 600k/year. That's literally 10x of the median salary.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#22

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

Solution: preventive health care, promoting a healthy lifestyle from an early age, and healthy eating

This is good to do for its own sake, but on a large scale it does not decrease health care costs: it makes people live longer, but they will still ultimately need the kind of end-of-life care where the majority of health care costs come from. Those costs don't go down for healthier people, and it might even increase health care spending on net if it takes people longer to die.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is currently only getting worse and many of these sicknesses are already irreversible in people. This also does not do anything about ageing

Luckily obesity is getting more and more solveable tbh

I imagine that means people will face whatever the next problem is (heart disease, or dementia or etc...)

but hopefully at a later age?

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#24

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

I have thought that we should make entering the medical professions much easier. In order to become a nurse, you usually need a 4 year degree. This has two issues: 1. This is way to much time in the classroom. Much of that coursework simply isn't necessary. 2. You have people that would be good nurses piking other programs because they can't get passing marks in classes that are irrelevant to day to day nursing. Bind…

That doesn't help if we don't have money to hire qualified nurses.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#25

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

The narrative is wrong - the wages are low while the working times are exhausting. Half of each trainee's leave each year, while the nurses that can actually endure this shit are going into pension in the next 10 years. And the money is spent on SAP systems who further take time from the already overworked nurses, because they now have to spent a ton of time entering data into a computer with no benefits. Its not peo…

Yeah, also over here in Finland the amount of money our public sector spends on stuff like Microsoft licenses is insane. Then there's lots of other craziness, like buying a very expensive and totally unsuitable American healthcare management system from Epic, and then spending lots of money on license fees and customizing it for local purposes (the end result also sucks, and is universally hated by healthcare staff).

I'm not sure whether it's a result incompetence, corruption or both, but massive amount of money is wasted on IT solutions that could be implemented more cheaply in-house, or at least by European companies.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#26

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

Solution: preventive health care, promoting a healthy lifestyle from an early age, and healthy eating

I think most of the increase in healthcare costs is coming from elderly people (because people are living longer). So while otherwise a good thing, I'm not sure that will help this particular problem.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#27
post #3
post #2

Yes can confirm this is real. I know both German and Dutch nurses who say that the workload is incredibly high. One older nurse also said the pressure today is much higher than years ago.

I am not surprised. Healthcare costs have been rising faster than inflation for several years. It's a difficult sell to increase budgets, so we have to resort to these "invisible" cost cutting measures to try and stay afloat.

It's the baby boom. If level of care stays the same then at some point one third of the labour force is projected to have to work in healthcare, it's not possible.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#29

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

Solution: preventive health care, promoting a healthy lifestyle from an early age, and healthy eating

That definitely increases outcomes and QALY but it only is cost neutral or saves costs if you also more tightly ration low-cost-effectiveness care down the road that ends up usually being near end-of-life, which is where A LOT of current spending is.

This is rational on a broad social level but is very difficult of a change to implement.

Re: The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

#30

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising. What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

I have thought that we should make entering the medical professions much easier. In order to become a nurse, you usually need a 4 year degree. This has two issues: 1. This is way to much time in the classroom. Much of that coursework simply isn't necessary. 2. You have people that would be good nurses piking other programs because they can't get passing marks in classes that are irrelevant to day to day nursing. Bind…

At least in the US, nursing does not require a 4 year degree. You can become an RN with an associates degree. A 2 year nursing degree has one of the highest returns on investment of any training program (especially if you go to community college). Ivy Tech CC in Indiana and WGU both have nursing programs with great returns. Keep in mind, nursing is not an easy path and has a super high burnout rate. It's a tough and demanding job.

Other professions with a great return on training are HVAC, electrician, plumber, robotics/logic systems (CAM, conveyors, etc.). These are especially high paying if you focus on commercial and industrial.

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