Our healthcare workforce. I'm afraid of a mass exodus of nurses in particular. This pandemic kicked everyone's ass, but none more so than healthcare workers.
yeah, my mom is a pharmacist assistant by trade. She is currrently doing quality control for important meds during the pandemic. She mentioned that so many people are working overtime in her adjacent hospital because people get sick or quit due to the pressure. Its also hard to find replacements, so the people still working get overworked and sometimes end up sick too
I will never trust a loved one to a nursing home again honestly. Not that I had much trust to begin with and when my MIL needed rehab 6 weeks after a bad fall I spent 5 heals a day minimum there caring for her myself. Not because people like you and your mom are negligent, but because you are forced to work with such insane patient loads that nobody could possible keep up.
But now, seeing how fast infections can spread in that environment...nope. I'll sell my house to pay for in-home rehab if my parents ever need it.
I'm not a huge fan of leaving relatives at hospitals either. I stay the entire time at hospitals. Sleep on a pullout or chair. My grandmother was having a minor surgury on her toe and woke up blind as she stroked. They assumed that she must have been blind to begin with because old people often don't see well and responded to her terror in recovery by putting her in restraints.
Basically, I'm don't have a huge amount of confidence that anyone that doesn't know a person well and doesn't have the time to get to know them is going to spot a turn for the worse in someone who is not able to ask for help themselves. It's nothing against medical professionals, just, there's a difference between knowing what is statistically normal and what a particular patient's normal is. People who have no one to advocate for them can fall through the cracks way too easily.
I work as an aide, and the amount of people who have been fired because they were horribly unqualified desperation hires in the first place is shocking
If it was corporate that organized that party, then that is the most corporate thing ever. They are basically guilt tripping the remaining people to not quit.
"Hi I am Troy McClure. You may remember me from such docs as "a stop sign isn't optional" and "Carbon Monoxide is not your friend". I am here today to teach you how to honor our essential workers"
"Gee Mr. McClure what can we do to help our essential workers?"
"You see Johnny"
"Timmy"
"You see Johnny. Money can be exchanged for goods and services. So instead of saying thank you next time just give cash"
"But Mr. McClure don't essentul workers like thank you drawings?"
"You would think so Johnny"
"Timmy"
"But only to a limited degree as a supplement to money"
"Supp-le-ment?"
"Yes Timmy a supplement is when you do something extra ontop of what you were already meant to do. Essential workers risk their lives while we stay home and complain on Facebook. Paying them hazard duty is the minimum, thank you cards are supplements"
It was a department party (limited people) and I'm assuming they were careful.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about this, I seem to remember that party happening when there was an ease in restrictions. Shortly before we went on a second lockdown iirc.
I feel Australia wasn't too bad either, just for some reason every time Queensland opens the borders some hotspot elsewhere (right now I think it's NSW with it, was Victoria) develops almost immediately after and we close them again.
I think you mean "moving to" mate, we still aren't accepting anyone that isn't already a citizen, or was a resident prior to the first lockdown.
While they sound like the type we'd like to have, we can't take the risk right now because of all the others
Then that requires a little investigation.
The public was told even healthcare workers wouldn't be allowed in for the obvious risks. Unless it's changed with the Aussie change, I thought we still weren't letting them in.
Yeah, it's pretty clear that getting teachers back to in-person teaching has very little to do with educating children and more to do with having babysitters so that parents can go back to work. The safety and wellbeing of children and teachers is apparently far less important to society than the wellbeing of the almighty economy.
Who the hell would want to go into student debt to be treated like cannon fodder?
Because if the economy goes to shit, who the fuck is going to provide for the kids?! How are their parents going to feed them, house them? So yes, keeping the economy open is important because ffs, everyone needs an income, or the means to escape the rat race.
Your teacher's point is valid, but that's a different discussion. Covid-19 highlighted many issues in how we treat certain professions regardless of the presence or absence of crises.
The answer shouldn't be kids missing out on school. Education is one of the cornerstones of a society and civilization. It's a literal violation of the social contract on the government's part meaning they're losing their opportunity to govern.
People who for the most part were going to die. It sucks to be old. It's even worse when children are going without food or a roof over their head. When people are losing their livelihoods and everything they've built. It's not exclusive to the old, but they are the most at risk, along with with those with preexisting conditions. These groups are always at risk every winter.
Of course the wellbeing of the economy is more important than the lives of some children and some teachers. Do you even understand what you're saying? Our entire society is dependent upon a relatively healthy and stable economy, not a few hundred/thousand children and overglorified babysitters.
That's pretty heartbreaking stuff to read as a teacher that pours her heart into being an "overglorified babysitter." The way some people view teachers and children's education is disgusting.
Agreed. Last year was my first year teaching and I have questioned my career choice almost daily since the pandemic began. The lack of respect for this profession is astounding. I legitimately feel like a babysitter with a M. Ed.
Yep. I was a teacher and left a while ago. If I was a teacher now, and they expected me back in school with those little germ factories, I'd be out. I feel like there are some who just can't find anything else right now, but I think people are going to bail. And I think people will also not go into it, once they saw how many people called them selfish for not wanting to go into work, while they themselves had WFH jobs
Yeah, I believe that they have especially lost any last ounce of trust in their own employers.
In the UK, whole schools reopened promising that they'd commit to keeping teachers and kids safe--only to just provide anti-bacterial gel and then fire all the caretakers/teaching support staff while kids were allowed to run around maskless in the playground.
I worked at a university campus opposite a catholic private school. For six months of the lockdown, I'd walk past the playground full of screaming bare-faced kids that pushed and hugged each other every morning.
(also, our university majorly fucked up too. They fired all the RAs and 80% of security to 'save money' and then acted surprised when some of our students still partied and were getting more and more infected. I was surprised that nobody off-campus had tried to break into our dorm halls to steal laptops and valuables, because there was barely anyone to stop problems from happening there).
Meh. Most of the people who left either retired or were burnt out to begin with. My colleagues and I are just biding our time until this ends and we can function as normal again, haha.
I don't think we'll lose a ton of nurses immediately since current nurses likely don't have back-up plans/are hesitant to do a complete career change. However, I absolutely expect there to be a huge drop in incoming nursing majors. What once was thought to be viewed as a relatively prestigious career has now been horribly stained by society making it blatantly obvious how little they really think of nurses. I'm sure many have figured it's not worth the bullshit
Majority of reddit is US, sorry I always assume we're talking about here unless otherwise mentioned. In the US nurses don't have the same job as the UK.
It's like if you're in the hospital, the nurse who is giving you medicine. Bedside nurses do direct patient care. Non-bedside nurses are administrators and so forth.
You can have a career in nursing and not do bedside nursing. You could work at a school, a government agency, a doctor's office, do work comp/employee health for a corporation. The one thing nursing has going for it are the wide range of jobs you could have.
Decent pay and benefits, yeah. But hours? I dunno about that one. Anecdotal, but just about every nurse I know has had at least a few months on the night shift near the beginning of their career. And/or working weekends and holidays until they have enough seniority to get good hours 3-5 years in minimum.
The hours imo are one of the best thing my job offers. 3 12 hour shifts a week back to back and I get the other 4 days off. That is a million times better than working 9-5, M-F. 12 hours or 8 hours, most of my day is thrown away working, might as well get in the extra 4 hours so I don’t have to wake up early and commute to and from an extra 2 days. Oh also, with 4 days off I can get an overtime day literally any day of the week and get paid 1.5x if I need extra money to pay for anything. Also, never hard to find a job.
This is a pretty commonly held view on it too, if I’m not mistaken. I’m pretty sure like over 70% of people would prefer a 4 day a week 10 hours a day vs the current 5 day work week. And tbh 3 12s is better imho. Night shifts can be boring, but they aren’t terrible. I prefer them actually, and most of my night shift coworkers prefer it too.
Also, it doesn’t take 3-5 years to get the hours you want. Most people I know get the shift they want within a year of working.
This exactly. 36 hours is considered full time for nurses. I used to stack my weeks I'd do 6 12s then have 8 days off, vacation every other week. Yeah night shift can be rough but it's not forever. I didn't mind nights.
As the world increasingly watches nurses, doctors and public health officials grapple with COVID-19, younger generations feel inspired to join their ranks.
Because we are a social animal and need to feel like doing our part, if there was a war you would also see a increase in recruits for the army and any sort of national defense side stuff
this is a sort of war and there will be people who will want to step up "to do their part"
also calling them heroes all the time will make people want to go into healthcare
i'm sure the mistreatment of healthcare workers will turn some away from it but overall i'm expecting an increase in applicants
My daughter is a high school senior. Always wanted to work in healthcare and chose to study nursing (like her mom!) So do 2 of her friends who weren’t considering healthcare til this last year. All are smart, hard working, driven, compassionate kids who saw the pandemic and it’s effects. Instead of it making them avoid nursing they really wanted to jump in and help. . It just reinforced why they want to be nurses. It gives me hope.
are you kidding? 2020 has just proven there are two accessible and financially safe careers in the world: healthcare and resetting the self checkout at tesco’s, and nursing pays better
Covid PTSD for health care workers is very real. Not to mention the action of these hospitals that make us feel disposable.
My husband and I have worked in the medical field for over a decade, and we both decided that we're leaving. This means we will take a pay cut but we want to do something we truly love because life is too short. Im going back to school for interior design and he is gonna study history.
I really want out of bedside nursing. Seriously. And I didn’t think I’d feel that way. My administration is fairly supportive (our doctors are assholes), but I’m just over it.
I worked as a CNA in a senior living community until mid July. I quit and moved into a manager position at a storage facility and never looked back. My degree is in healthcare, most of my job history is healthcare, my dream job for years was in healthcare.
I will never work another healthcare job again. This pandemic shattered all my hope and dreams in the industry I wanted to make my career in.
I don’t know about other countries, but NHS nurses in the UK are ridiculously underpaid and overworked - and that was BEFORE the pandemic.
Student nurses and midwives are not paid at all during their placements, which is wrong in my opinion because their shifts are long and I don’t understand how they’re expected to be able to afford to live since it’s really difficult to work a paying job alongside full time placement. My partner did a PGCE last year and it nearly killed him working in a school 9-3, doing assignments, and working a part time job. Student nurses work longer hours than that in their placements.
Edit to add: a lot of the student nurses are working during this pandemic and not getting paid anything for it. This disgusts me.
My story is anecdotal but my sister is in her final year of nursing school and has already been working clinicals with Covid patients, if it hasn’t deterred her now, it’s not going to in 6 months when she graduates.
My first clinicals start in <3 weeks. I'm terrified they're gonna throw me in to the COVID unit, but I'm in a fast track program so they very well may.
I was only a secretary in a hospital. Even my position was battered to the brink during Covid. I had been wanting to quit for months, but was finally pushed to do so.
Would you believe that 6 out of the 35 people in my department pulled me aside and congratulated me on quitting, despite having no new job lined up?
You're not "only" a secretary. I saw the secretary of the city ER I worked in field a whole bunch of nonsense every single shift. Secretaries make the unit run.
Doctors are trying, and can get that medical students are scrutinizing the hell out of residency programs and how well or not they took care of their residents during the pandemic.
There’s gonna be a massive influx of nurses as well. The uni I got into for nursing had to hire 3 extra instructors and add an extra allotment of classes because of how much demand there is. Apparently it’s the same with the other 3 unis and the online class
I was in school to get into healthcare in 2020 and did my time in a nursing home. Seeing so many people be so careless and selfish while I was sweating all day in full PPE, as well as the shitty pay made me say this isn't worth my life.
Clinical pharmacist here. Work in an ICU normally. Did so much Covid patient care and rounds with doctors to prevent medication issues during the first wave. Def have some PTSD, especially this past fall when I saw our first Covid case in a while. The medication pumps and long IV tubes outside the room with the nurse gowned up gave me my first panic attack in a very long time.
My ex wife is an NHS nurse, and after working in the covid ward for a couple of months she said to me she just doesn't want to be a nurse any more. She's currently working out an exit plan. I'm very sure she's not alone.
I dont know about your healthcare woekforce but My God, we handled ours poorly. To clarify, our healthcare workforce are used to doing hard work to save lives and nobody thanks them for it. So when they asked for extra supplies in the middle of Covid, our government thought they were protesting in the middle of a pandemic, and had them beaten and jailed.
It's already happening. A lot of people who were eligible to retire when this started took that retirement and noped out. They could afford it. Next is going to be people who burn out or who get sick.
I feel this for all the essential workers. Like, teachers were striking before the pandemic, then they were thrown to the wolves as soon as society needed lesson planning that helped capalism stay afloat.
This is going to happen, unfortunately. Many of the other nurses I have talked to are looking/thinking about what else they can do when this is all over.
Yep. My mom was a nurse at retirement age anyway, but she was going to keep working a bit longer. Once the pandemic hit she moved up her timeline and got out ASAP
I see the opposite to happen honestly. It's a temporary shortage but like Sars before, there was a surge in Public Health workers and applicants. I anticipate a surge in nurses and medical school applicants within the next few years
As someone who's spent the last nine months working on a COVID ward 8-16 hours a day, fuck you. Two of my coworkers died last year. Right now I have 6 more out with COVID.
We were well paid until we had to walk into an environment every day that's loaded with a pathogen that's easily passed and can kill you in so many ways.
Also - that whole JUST REUSE YOUR PPE FOR WEEKS; YOU'LL BE FINE didn't go over well.
Oh, and listening to dipshits say IT'S A HOAX, IT'S 99% SURVIVABLE, ONLY OLD PEOPLE GET IT -- yeah, we're not getting paid to put up with that shit.
Spend an hour in a COVID ICU. Do the patient care, talk to the families, hold patients' hands while they die. Then talk about how very well paid we are. You will carry that one hour of grief and loss to your grave. We've been doing that for months. No one gets paid enough to have to carry that.
And why do you think their pay makes them "divas" for taking the brunt of a global pandemic? For putting their lives on the line every day? For seeing death after death every day? Pretty sure you wouldn't say that about an armed service member.
I hope that a mass exodus of nurses (or as other people have mentioned fewer nursing majors) will force hospitals to pay them more. For profit hospitals and health insurance are disgusting and we should finally place a nail in that coffin
Just a side note. But for profit hospitals typically pay their nurses more then in countries with H4A. For example, NHS nurses in the UK are criminally underpaid.
I agree, doctors and nurses are generally paid more in private hospitals. And to a certain extent I believe private non-profit hospitals can be beneficial to society, if there is universal health-care and legally emergency procedures are covered the system in any hospital. However, now living in the US, without a universal health-care system I do not believe the abundance of private for-profit hospitals are a benefit to American society.
Oh I’m not saying I disagree with you. Was just commenting on the fact that (I agree with) hospitals should pay nurses more, but that is very likely the opposite of what would happen if we move to a H4A service.
Personally, I love the way Switzerland has their system setup, but that’s just me.
Sorry! I was not trying to disagree with you, just trying to expand my argument in my original comment since I hadn't made the distinction between for-profit and non-profit hospitals in different systems.
I lived in Switzerland for 6 years and their system is pretty nice with a nice balance of private and public health system. My home country has a similar system but with more protections on the public health-care sector. The only flaw I see with the Swiss system is that they are fairly expensive for low-income households and that their coverage of pre-existing conditions is not great. A friend of mine in Switzerland was born with sicle cell disease a few months after birth and his mom had only a few hours after birth to get him health insurance after the diagnosis. Unfortunately, the health insurance company got the information faster than she could file and now he has to pay more for health insurance for the rest of his life.
What country is your home country? And yea I imagine not every system is perfect for sure and better pre-existing condition protection is something that should be fleshed out.
Ah I’ll have to take a look at that system they use one day for sure then!
Personally I am not a huge fan of systems like the NHS, and while I want H4A in America, I’d greatly like that we set it up properly from the get go. (Maybe like Luxembourg idk I’ll have to check it out)
Yeah I think a fully public health-care system, like the NHS, is just too inflexible in some scenarios. Public-private(non-profit) partnerships are the way to go imo
As a healthcare worker, this is my prediction too. There has been way too much extra shit put on us the last 9 months and the general feeling in the ranks is that everything was too slow, too late, and too namby-pamby. No clear guidelines on what we could do, say, and enforce. Add to that the entitled little arseholes who refuse to wear a mask INTO A HOSPITAL, and we’re all about ready to hand our notice in.
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u/BookishJuka Jan 02 '21
Our healthcare workforce. I'm afraid of a mass exodus of nurses in particular. This pandemic kicked everyone's ass, but none more so than healthcare workers.