When nurses go on strike, people die.

[Patty O'Furniture]

Well, actually they don't. But it seems like they should. Nurses at Howard University (DC) Hospital are set to go on strike in 48 hours if they don't get their contract. How are patients cared for when nurses go on strike?

[Patty O'Furniture]

Sorry, should have been a GQ.

[I am Sparticus]

Maybe doctors could get stop golfing all damn day long and do some nursing. Is the post suggesting that nurses should be prohibited from striking and have to work for whatever wages and benefits they are offered?

[Papermache Prince]

There's no mystery here. When nurses strike, the hospital replaces them with nurses willing to cross a picket line, and pays them at higher rates than the striking nurses. Elective surgeries are postponed and patients are sent to other hospitals if necessary.

[Michael Ellis]

Originally posted by I am Sparticus
Maybe doctors could get stop golfing all damn day long and do some nursing.

[CrazyCatLady]

Originally posted by I am Sparticus
Maybe doctors could get stop golfing all damn day long and do some nursing.

Get out from under your bridge much to actually MEET any doctors, Sparticus?

[CrazyCatLady]

If the nurses at Howard are unhappy with their jobs, they can come to Kentucky or North Carolina. I know for a fact that several hospitals in central KY are willing to pay for you to go through UK's nursing school if you'll contract to work for them for three years. They'll even pay you a signing bonus when you graduate. It's pretty much a laborer's market, so I'm sure they can find an employer willing to treat them well.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

But many nurses are very dedicated to their positions and patient populations in their respective communities, and don't want to follow the money trail elsewhere. They want wage parity, and want to stop the enforced double shifts for coverage when they're short nurses, and want to stop hospital practices which often shortchange patient care.

QtM, MD
Who thinks a good nurse is more valuable than a good doctor

[DoctorJ]

I have worked in hospitals where the nurses were listened to and treated like the intelligent human beings they are. I have also worked in hospitals where the nurses were treated like dirt. I can't even begin to tell you how much difference it makes.

In fact, when I toured the residency programs, one of the questions I asked of every interviewer was, "How happy are the nurses and the ancillary staff?"

This is one reason I chose a community hospital over a university-based one. University hospitals typically treat their nursing staff like crap, and have ridiculously high turnover rates. It just isn't a priority.

I say let 'em walk out. The hospital can bring in some people who don't know what they're doing, and they'll realize that the nurses run the place and that a well-trained and knowledgable nurse is worth her weight in gold.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to the back nine.

Dr. J, MD

[irishgirl]

when nurses don't strike they continue to be paid like s**t and their essential contribution to medicine remains undervalued and underpaid.

an underpaid nurse is more likely to moonlight, and a moonlighting nurse is less able to give proper care.

pay them a decent, living wage, they sure as hell deserve it.

[Bippy the Beardless]

Maybe we should consider it this way

When Nurses work they SAVE peoples lives that would otherwise be lost.
When they strike, they stop doing this.

That said, I believe striking should always be the last option of any professional, especially in a service that helps their fellow human beings.

Cheers, Keithy

[smiling bandit]

Well, Keith, the fact remains that Nurses aren't going to mortgage their entire future for your or anyone else's convienience, and that no one will probably die over it. And in the long run you may get better services because of the strike.

[msmith537]

Has anyone ever actually died from not having their bedpan replaced quickly enough?

[Spit]

msmith537, PLEASE tell me you are joking? Please?

[Dangerosa]

In alot of cases nurses aren't striking over the money, but over the shortage of nurses. Hospitals are understaffing themselves. If a nurse pulls back to back 8 hour shifts patient care suffers - and yet he CAN'T go home. It gets worse when the nurses are working 12 hour shifts. And if he can't leave the hospital, what does he do about his personal life - his child care arrangements, etc.

But the only way nurses see to address the nursing shortage is to make it lucrative enough that more people want to do it.

Nursing is a hard job. You deal with puke and shit all day. There is a lot of heavy lifting. You work nights, weekends and holidays. Lives depend on what you do or don't do. It can be very stressful. You have to get an education, and, to be a 4 year RN, it isn't an easy education.

CrazyCatLady - my sister (an ICU RN with a Masters degree) has looked into some of our local "signing bonuses" They really aren't very big - certainly not large enough to disrupt your life. And those hospitals that are so needy aren't willing to pay her any more (and often less) than she is making now - and she'd loose her seniority, which means more nights and weekends. You can make far more doing case work for an insurance company or selling pharmacueticals - and that's a 9 to 5 day job. Which is the real problem with nursing - nurses often make a lot more money doing something easier and less stressful than patient care. Its a profession thats easy to burn out on, and one that often attracts a women with traditional values, who marries and quits to raise her children.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

msmith537, if that is what you think, you display a profound ignorance of what it is nurses do.

QtM, MD

[Shodan]

Nurses are worth whatever they can get for their labor on the open market. Strikes, labor shortages, going to work for an insurance company for more money and less weekends, are all part of that.

Keep in mind that nurses' salaries and benefits are part of the cost of health care. If they get a raise, or if more of them are hired per shift, that money has to come from somewhere.

I used to work for a hospital system where there was a concerted effort by the anesthetists to force the CRNAs out. The competition was holding down their income. Their argument was almost the same as the OP - that too many CRNAs being supervised by too few anesthetists led to adverse patient outcomes.

There ain't no free lunch.

Regards,
Shodan