Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually think that this is just one example of many across a ton of disciplines where people like Nurses basically are forced to deal with costs and responsibilities offloaded onto them from above the responsibility chain. Resources are eaten up at the top of the chain to their benefit and costs are offloaded down the chain until it reaches people like Nurses at the end of the line who have to deal with it because…
I think this is due to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy : https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html "In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agric…
These are all jobs where people sign up for the job. Whether it’s altruism or genuine passion. They’re willing to compromise and put up with less pay and harder working conditions.
But because they’re willing to compromise, these people are pushed to their limit. With not only low pay and shit conditions, but higher-ups which actively exploit their altruism and passion. “If you don’t work, patients / children are going to suffer!” coming from the same beaurocracy which created the situation where a) they suffer or b) you work extra hours.
They’re being pushed past the limit in fact, which is why there’s now a nursing and teaching shortage despite these actually being popular fields. A lot of people want to work these professions, they just don’t want the jobs.