Hospital Greed Is Destroying Our Nurses. Here’s Why. | NYT Opinion

Hi, I'm Lucy, a producer with Opinion Video. When I first started hearing about a nursing shortage, I thought that I understood why that was happening: Burned-out nurses were finally succumbing to exhaustion after a two-year battle with the virus. But after reaching out to over 50 nurses I learned I was wrong. In reality Covid had just exacerbated a problem that existed long before the pandemic. in our video, five of the nurses I spoke with explain in their own words how corporate greed has created a critical shortage of bedside nurses, and what can be done to solve this crisis. I'd love to know what you thought of our film, and answer questions about how we reported and produced it. Leave your comments below

The answer is STRONG UNIONS

I’ve seen the eye of a nurse and I would say the nurses are part of the greed grab.

I think a solution is easier than you think. The bottom line is "did the facility fail to provide resources that were required as outlined in the high censos polices that accreditors require to have on each unit. If staff accepts an assignment that is beyond high census language and it's not safe don't accept the assignment.

And a shortage of CNA's for the same reason.

I have the highest respect for nurses. I could NEVER do their jobs. Thank god for them...I hope conditions get better for them...

100% true!

The nursing shortage has existed for decades. The 2 leading reasons...Assaults and Bureaucracy. This video fails to mention that there are federal laws regarding 'nurse to patient' ratios for each unit (can't be below). Those ratios did not exist prior to 2004. It was common then to have a nurse have as many a 10 patients in the ER. Not today...the ratio now is 4-1. They also have diagnostic tools and computers to make the job easier and more efficient. So when a nurse says they're overworked I always bring up the past. It enlightens them to say the least.

Private equity is devouring America. No one has the guts to rein them in.

I hope they fix this issue before I become a nurse💔 We need more staffing in each hospital, nurses shouldn’t have to work 12 hour shifts, that’s inhumane and wrong and the person that get the short end of the stick are the patients, because their life is on their line. Hospitals need to stop being greedy!

I was in the hospital last year. Before that I didn't think one way or another about nurses. The nurses were absolute sh*t. They logged false information on my chart because they were too lazy to actually do the job. Gossipy lazy trash.

Doctors don't save your a$$, nurses do. Hire more, pay decent wages. Glad I'm retired.

We can do better. Other countries do. we can.

so what is the aim of these non profit hospitals, profit or service to patients?..........

sounds like a ego trip for top management.....................

I worked 24 hours . No one to
Relieve me. I started crying
24 hour. As I understand Texas is a Right to work State. A right to hire, fire at will, not to give employees a 401k, profit sharing, or lunch breaks, or vacation. Too many patients
For one nurse to take care of.
Dr. Rude to employees and many nurses bully each other
End the “ Right to work”
Vs Will to Work like California.
California is a safer state to
Work as Nurse vs Texas , Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi ( all were slave states) and the conditions for nurses are no better.

like why is a nurse only making 80,000 a year thats a health profession and a serious career with huge liabilitys and responsibilities

Enforce and pass Federal staff/patient ratio laws.

I am tired of the emotional/verbal abuse from both patients and nurses.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A NURSING SHORTAGE!!!! WE ARE BURNED OUT, ABUSED, AND MENTALLY SUFFERING!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course they have. All this country cares about is money, nothing else. If you don't have insurance in America, you might as well die because you will never be able to pay off the medical bills. THIS. HAS. TO. CHANGE.

There are more professions other than nurses and doctors that care for patients—critically sick patients.

I’m an ER nurse that is expected to have 5 patients with no consideration for acuity and no help from resources or techs. So it’s not uncommon to have your 5 patients include 1 trauma activation that they put in a hallway, one intubated patient, and one patient that’s getting blood. You’ll still be expected to handle everything from transport, labs, and simple snack requests. They do not hire techs and sometimes you’ll have 6 patients.

Nothing about this is okay

Greed is good. USA number one. Capitalism number one.

It’ll be even worst, treatment will be more expensive if they add more nurses . The whole healthcare system is broken

God. I’m so glad I’m a respiratory therapist. I’ve NEVER had to deal with any of this, & I make more $ than A LOT of RN’s I work with. It’s a shame.

Oh and addressing the mental health of nurses dealing with daily trauma is absolutely not happening. That's a really bad joke,

Yeah, I don't want to hear what a hero I am, I want to be treated with respect. It is an insult to my intelligence for management to bs me with what a "hero" I am.

HCA Healthcare once again tops the list for largest health systems by NPR with a net patient revenue of over $49 billion. In addition to being the largest health system by both the number of hospitals and net patient revenue, HCA also ranks number one in total hospital square footage and number of hospital beds. As a result, HCA has had a significant influence on healthcare in the U.S. for the last several years.

Costliness

I'm a chef. And it's not a good idea to mistreat those who cook your food. So with my many hospital visits (I wouldn't be alive otherwise) I tend to focus on respecting those assigned to keeping me alive.

The most annoying thing I ever heard from HR was that I as a RN was OVERHEAD

This is why I quit being a CNA

Yep i been a nurse for 25 years and yes greed is rhe word we work short all the time .no cna management don't care

How could you release such an obviously well done video only to have it be totally obliterated by your terrible audio?

So who in the govt is saying we need more people in this world? No. Child-free is not selfish, it’s selfless.

You are NOT slaves. Unite with a nurses union that stands up with your demands, not your employer. To bring your problem to the company is like reporting to the foxes that chickens are found dead and missing. Dont quit, learn to FIGHT back or quit. Only two choices. Unite and stand together shoulder to shoulder... believe me it will work!

The new trend is facilities, not hospitals to my knowledge currently, but companies like Amazon hiring non medically trained people to do jobs that should require medical education of some form. Patient safety is getting more compromised because of greed.

Thx, NYT! I've been in Healthcare for 37 yrs & I left nursing after 33yrs as an LPN because Big Pharma taught me what a liar it was while I was Psych Nurse Liason for contract Psychiatrists Sarasota hired to care for Psych & Dual Diagnosis Clients here. I bent over backwards to make up for their criminal acts against humans to help my clients & the Nurse I trained as my replacement said I was enabling a broken system & she wasn't going to go through the same lengths I had chosen to try to help the clients. Now former Nurses are being harassed by local Hospitals who claim Nurses are the harassers in the new situation. Florida Department of Health still hasn't sent my Massage Therapist license renewal after 20 yrs now 10 months later since I started speaking out about AMA, Big Pharma & some of the criminal moves of previous nursing employer Medical Systems here. People deserve to know what is being done to them by Industries focused on profits & new research fundings. Protecting the function of our BioElectromagnetic Energy Field that Big Tech is modifying through aggressive moves is my focus now.

I know this to be true, I was pushed and I became the patient.. don't let it happen to you or anyone else please

In my city, healthcare professionals have been quitting by the droves. Who can blame them?

Not just nurses but CNA’s as well.

Just got out of my abdominal surgery three nights hospital stay. Was not great experience, nurses professional performance-wise. Hated it.

Oh but when a med error or sentinel event happens, blame the nurse, let her/his license get taken away/go to jail. They don’t care about their workers or what happens to their license. Just the money.

I couldn't agree more. Nobody has born the weight of covid more than nurses. Medical greed gas taxed and burdened them unfairly. For hundreds of years these workers brought grace and compassion to those in need. And yet when changes were made they didn't cut the fat paychecks of management and phds, no the cut and understaffed the field of nuress.

Greedy hospitals? Cliche and boring argument. You're over simplifying a complicated scenario and while nurses work hard, compared to my mom's generation and my grandmother's generation, you got it good now. Being in middle management I see both sides and nurses can be as full of crap and much as anyone in administration.

Most nurses I know suffer from PTSD. No freaking joke. Also, No government payment supplement for nursing PTSD.

After running my legs off in long halls working during my lunch time having more heavy patients than one can handle I do not expect anybody to say thank you.
I just do not like my head nurse calling me to her office being hateful and blaming me for everything under the sun.

Nurses demanded more pay and got the extra pay. Nurses make more than most people make, by far. Unfortunately, the great majority, who make far less than a nurse, cannot afford the cost of medical care anymore. So the system does not work as the cost of health care is far above what the great majority of people can afford to pay. Then add in all the illegal immigrants who do not pay, and the medical system is completely broken.

Facts. Im so tired of all this.