(July 16, 2013 at 6:46 am)The Germans are coming Wrote: I would like to point out that one of the most importent type of empolyee in a medicare system are nurses.
Everyone keeps talking about doctors and ignores that nurses are by far the higher percentege of employed people in a hospital.
Where I live they get their guaranteed payroll in state owned hospitals, yet there have been various scandals about dumbing wages and illegaly employing foreigners in privat owned hospitals.
How is the US doing on that? Considering that private insurance companies are proven to save money when it comes to the health of the patient, I wouldnt be suprised if they wouldnt give a damn about the wellbeing of those so often ignored employees.
RNs here make good money and are in high demand. The average wage for a full-time RN is around $60,000 a year. LPNs, the step below RN, are also in high demand, the pay is around $42,000 a year. Both of these salaries are considered good wages. However, in comparison with doctors, it's a drop in the bucket. I have a lot of relatives who are nurses (two aunts, a few cousins, step-mom, sister-in-law, incidentally all women), the main complaint I've heard from them is the lack of respect shown nurses, by both patients and doctors. I've also heard complaints about long hours, rude patients, sore feet/knees/back (my family isn't so hot on the personal, physical health sphere, which is odd considering the number of medical professionals, I chalk a lot of this up to lack of appropriate self-care), and fat patients (evidently rolling/moving/picking up extremely large patients is difficult, who would have thought?)
Also, hospital/facility policies can be wonky. My step-mom is an RN. She had repeatedly given improper doses of medication to different patients. The facility where she worked had a policy regarding this (as all employers in this field do), X number of strikes and you're out sort of deal. I'm not saying nurses who give improper dosages should be kept on staff, quite the opposite. However, the 3rd time she gave an improper dose, they didn't fire her (she had received warnings for the previous instances)... Instead, they met with her and forced her to resign, through some contractual/employment loophole. If they had fired her, the patients would have ammunition in court to prove wrong doing or negligence on behalf of the staff of the facility, making them susceptible to a lawsuit-at least one of the patients went into arrest due to her fuck-up.
So much of our medical system is built around avoiding lawsuits and medical malpractice, as well as catering to and milking the insurance industry. To the point that even when the facility KNOWS something isn't right, they won't fire the people causing the problem. My step-mom? Got a new job at another facility within a week or two, she also received severance pay from the facility she was "fired" from. The employer who "fired" her, gave her a glowing review and never mentioned her problems with giving proper medication dosages to patients. This is obviously anecdotal, but does not instill confidence...
Also, it should be noted, Nursing is one of the few fields where Unions are still "strong" in the US, with around 20% of nurses being members of nursing unions. 20% doesn't seem very high, but relatively speaking... Unions are being gutted throughout the US, so 20% is relatively "high" for a field.
On a side note, I'm going back to school for an RN...
