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

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#121

Post by objectivetruth » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #96

schaefer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough nurses, and aren't enough doctors sitting idle right now to hire up in the way that you're suggesting... and if you thought spinning up a chip fab in Texas is taking too long, wait until you try to solve the problem of spinning up more doctors. the residency program that takes up years of their schooling relies on having other doctors mentor them.

We should just put new doctors into an emergency six month fast track program.

Dude, I don't even trust the graduate of a six-month boot camp to touch my production code for a niche web app and you want to let one PERFORM HUMAN MEDICINE?!?!

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#122

Post by analog31 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #49

schaefer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough nurses, and aren't enough doctors sitting idle right now to hire up in the way that you're suggesting... and if you thought spinning up a chip fab in Texas is taking too long, wait until you try to solve the problem of spinning up more doctors. the residency program that takes up years of their schooling relies on having other doctors mentor them.

There's actually an enormous abundance of nurses in the US. One in 100 people is a registered nurse. The nursing shortages are entirely due to the fact that these nurses have left bedside care due to the BS they have to deal with from understaffing, poor compensation, terrible shifts/hours, to abusive management and patients. The "nursing shortage" is as much a myth as the current labor shortage. There's only a short…

In my locale, a large percentage of doctors have switched to part time hours.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#123

Post by 0xB31B1B » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:31 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…

1) No one with diabetes yells at you that “diabetes is a hoax” and tells you to fuck off as you intubate them. 2) the prevention/cure for diabetes is clear (weight loss) but extremely difficult (low success rates). The prevention for covid is extremely easy and requires almost zero sacrifice or change in habits.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#124

Post by erikerikson » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #82

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.

Is such a tradeoff common? Or do the best employers offer both?

The best employers offer both and often have far better profitability.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#125

Post by janeroe » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

There is a relevant speech by a surgeon who along with other doctors started their own practice [1]. It's called "Why Aren't There More Free Market Surgery Centers and Clinics".

> The last two payments I received from Medicare were as follows: $285 for a six-hour cardiac anesthetic and $78 for the anesthesia services required for a knee replacement. These fees had been imposed through a mechanism referred to as the resource-based relative value scale, more appropriately called the Rosemary’s baby of healthcare. According to the folks at Harvard who gave birth to this creature, every physician service had a price and they knew what those prices were.

> Prices are signals, after all, and Medicare was sending me a signal regarding what they thought the service I provided was worth, or they meant to intentionally cull the ranks. I felt obligated to respond with a rational signal of my own and as I’ve mentioned, I quit participating in their scheme.

> To further bolster this bankrupt-hospital narrative, physicians and surgeons were told there was no money to buy the equipment and supplies they needed. It was becoming increasingly obvious that it was time to get out. I had no desire to be controlled by the rising administrator class.

Next he discusses how under the guise of protection of customers and care about the citizens, government (lobbied by hospitals) tried to close their practice up because they charged 1/10th of what "not-for-profit" hospitals did.

https://mises.org/wire/why-arent-there-more-free-market-surg...

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#126

Post by preordained » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #96

schaefer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough nurses, and aren't enough doctors sitting idle right now to hire up in the way that you're suggesting... and if you thought spinning up a chip fab in Texas is taking too long, wait until you try to solve the problem of spinning up more doctors. the residency program that takes up years of their schooling relies on having other doctors mentor them.

We should just put new doctors into an emergency six month fast track program.

A bootcamp for doctors, that's the ticket!

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#127

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

schaefer wrote: post #23

Maxburn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, news reports about "hospitals are 90% capacity" or whatever is a business decision by design. They might have a couple more floors available but no staff for them because they aren't scheduled, because patients aren't there. They proactively cut staff wherever possible and then try to react.

There are not enough nurses, and aren't enough doctors sitting idle right now to hire up in the way that you're suggesting... and if you thought spinning up a chip fab in Texas is taking too long, wait until you try to solve the problem of spinning up more doctors. the residency program that takes up years of their schooling relies on having other doctors mentor them.

Pandemics in particular stress the system a lot because normally events the push hospitals to their limits are fairly localized and hospitals can borrow workers from elsewhere to fill out the staff. That happened early in 2020 in the US, some nurses made good money going from place to place as areas peaked in the early days of COVID.

Private hospitals in particular are never going to be particularly amenable to keeping the kind of slack that would be required to handle a pandemic. They barely keep enough staff for normal operations.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#128

Post by pempem » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #66

MattGaiser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it absurd that we allow medical staff to work 24 hour shifts. We don't let pilots do that. We don't let truckers do that.

Century old standard set by drug addicted doctor, continues to this day despite the evidence proving it foolish and dangerous. Funny tradition that refuses to die.

I'm not sure what this comment is steeped in beyond a lack of reading on the topic.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#129

Post by p1mrx » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

papito wrote: post #16

The garbage fire of 2020 was almost worth it, it seems. First, the reconfiguration for hybrid remote work, but also - helping the "essential employee" class realize they have been taken for suckers. I can imagine it's hard to go back to pulling overtime around ungrateful anti-vaxxers, while the office TV is showing billionaires take off into space in personal rocket penises.

> billionaires take off into space in personal rocket penises.

At least for now, we can laugh because their rockets are too impotent for orbit.

Re: Hospital exec says employees are walking off the job

#130

Post by yobbo » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #95

I suspect one could go a long way towards solving this by announcing that unvaccinated covid cases will get zero health insurance coverage. Make exceptions for those that truly cannot be vaccinated but to hell with everyone else. Going further, make society difficult to navigate for people unwilling to be vaccinated or wear masks and our frontline workers will have much better lives. Why are we compromising our quali…

> 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.