# Hospital CUTTING staff due to Corona **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [April 4, 2020, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030 "2020-04-04T04:42:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030/21 "2020-04-04T19:12:29Z")
For profit hospitals gotta make a profit. That’s the whole point of free-market healthcare. They are not in the business of helping people through this crisis - they are in the business of making a profit. It’s the way the system is designed. If you don’t like it, then elect people who will change the system. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030/22 "2020-04-04T19:18:21Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Wait. What? Seattle? I thought that was the worst place for it! > > Are they laying off people who aren’t employed in the ICU, which is overloaded? [https://www-king5-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.king5.com/amp/article/news/health/coronavirus/virgina-mason-medical-center-to-furlough-workers-cut-pay-amid-washington-coronavirus-crisis](https://www-king5-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.king5.com/amp/article/news/health/coronavirus/virgina-mason-medical-center-to-furlough-workers-cut-pay-amid-washington-coronavirus-crisis) (I don’t know if that link works properly since I’m on my cell phone. I tried to remove the Google gobbledygook) > [@](#): > > Gale Robinette, a Virginia Mason Medical Center spokesman, wrote in a statement that the medical center is temporarily modifying staffing and hours of operation at some of its outpatient facilities in response to low patient volumes. He declined to say how many employees will be furloughed or which Virginia Mason staff will be affected. > > “Some employment furloughs will occur but no layoffs are planned,” he wrote. “Our intent is that Virginia Mason be a smart steward of all its resources during this pandemic, protect our team members’ jobs long-term and remain a strong resource for the community now and in the years to come.” > > He added that executives, leaders and some physicians would receive the temporary pay cuts. Virginia Mason will also take steps to reduce its non-labor expenses, Robinette said. > > Virginia Mason isn’t the only medical center to report a financial loss from the reduction of non-urgent medical procedures. Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association, said some Washington hospital executives are now grappling with whether they’ll be forced to permanently shut their facility’s doors. > > “Hospitals are going to have to make hard choices about how to stay open," Sauer said. “Most of the hospitals are saying they have about 50 percent of their normal revenue coming in, and they are also telling us that they have about 120 percent of their normal expenses. That is a bad combination.” ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030/23 "2020-04-04T19:30:31Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Let me explain why they charge $8 for an aspirin (as an example.) > > Nurse contacts doctor to request it. > > Doctor writes order. > > Nurse transcribes order and sends it to the pharmacy. > > Pharmacist processes the order, then has the technician fill it and send it to the floor. > > Nurse administers dose, and then charts it afterwards. > > (A drug like aspirin would be in a dispensing machine on the floor, but those machines still need to be stocked and maintained.) I hate it when people that are completely and utterly clueless about how much a hospital costs to operate in general and the concept of how you have to assign overhead someplace, or how much it costs to actually order and dispense that aspirin specifically keep saying that it’s outrageous that aspirin costs more than at Walgreens. Maybe the bill should be something like $0.25 Hospital utility bills $1.00 Pharmacists Salary $1.00 cost to purchase all the equipment you see laying around 0.75 Nurse's salary .25 Hospital mortgage $1.00 uncollectable bills from deadbeat patients. $2.00 Doctor’s time to order the aspirin 0.70 Keeping Specialists on-call in case there's an emergency .05 Wholesale cost of aspirin. $1.00 Cost to bill insurance Instead of $8.00 Aspirin Hospitals make very little money (all the ones in my state our nonprofit). Some insurance companies are nonprofit. If you want to get rich of the medical needs of patients open a Walgreens and sell an entire bottle of aspirin to a patient for $2, you’ll make a lot more money than opening a hospital or insurance company and selling a single aspirin for $8.00 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030/24 "2020-04-04T19:34:32Z")
**Euphonious Polemic** , Simple observation that \*\*Dr Paprika \*\* is describing the Canadian system. No matter who pays how, a system is unlikely to pay for staff to stand around while the demand is not there. And not all of them can be of much use for what the demand will be. If executives are not taking pay cuts during this then that is bad, but in almost all places that I know of executives and leadership are sharing the burden and taking significant cuts for the duration, hoping that they still have a working institution on the other side. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-cutting-staff-due-to-corona/851030.md?page=1)