The healthcare heroes of 2020 are coming together. In less than a week, over 140,000 healthcare workers joined the Facebook page National Nurses March. They will march in Washington D.C. on May 12th. Their goals are to bring attention to:
- Safe nurse to patient ratios.
- Needed protection from violence against healthcare workers.
- Fair and realistic wages for nurses.
Nurses have hit their breaking point. Can our healthcare system recover?
Nurses and healthcare professionals have reached their breaking point. It’s gone beyond the routine burnout that has plagued nursing for years.
Watch the messages nurses share now. They don’t speak of a healthcare collapse as a possibility but an expected inevitability.
Many nurses no longer view a healthcare collapse as a possibility… but an expected inevitability.
To list every reason we’ve reached this point would take days, so I’ll focus on the three core reasons they are marching.
What are safe patient care ratios?
Nurses have a typical work staffing ratio (one nurse to x number of patients). This number varies based on the acuity level of the patients. Commonly accepted safe staffing ratios are 1:2 in the ICU, 1:3 in the emergency room, and 1:4 on a typical patient floor. Unfortunately, these are just proposed safe patient ratios. Very few nurses work at these levels. Many work at 2-5 times what is acceptable.
The pandemic has only worsened this problem. Safety has gone out the window as desperation sets in. When a nurse goes into a shift, their prayer is to be the best nurse for their patients. Unfortunately, hospitals have taken advantage of our compassionate nature.
When nurses aren’t able to provide adequate care for excess patients, the hospital doesn’t get in trouble. The nurse does. Management will yell at them for having poor time management, using too much overtime, and if the outcome is bad enough, their license may be revoked. Four years of education (and its cost) are now wasted because the hospital wouldn’t provide a safe staffing ratio.
Ask any nurse. We’ve missed meals, our 12-hour shifts have turned into 14 or even 16-hour shifts, our bathroom breaks can be a luxury rarely afforded. Our workload is so heavy we have to choose between peeing or giving the adequate care needed to keep our patients alive. We have too many patients and not enough time to give them the care they need or deserve. To make up for this, every few months, our manager will buy us a pizza.
Violence against healthcare workers.
In any other profession in the world, if someone hits you, bites you, or chokes you, they are in the wrong. In healthcare, it’s your fault. “What did you do wrong?” “Why couldn’t you de-escalate them?” “That’s going on your file.” “You should have done something differently.” This is what nurses hear.
We understand that not every patient understands what they are doing. Unfortunately, that distinction is rarely made in the hospital. Violence towards staff is looked at as a failure of healthcare staff to de-escalate the problem every time.
What are fair wages?
This was the big spark that brought much of this to light. Recently, over 200 members of Congress called for an investigation of price gouging by travel nurse agencies.
The low salary, negative yearly wage increase, and poor working conditions drove many healthcare providers away to other jobs. In our capitalistic world, if it takes that much money to motivate someone to work, that’s what they should pay. Many others left because of vaccination requirements. To make up for the lost staff, hospital administrators will bring in travel nurses. They bring these nurses into the hospital to help with patient care after only a few hours of training.
The hospitals will pay these travel nurses two to five times what their staff nurses are making. Unfortunately, the hospitals rarely consider that a modest and fair raise for staff might have motivated them enough to remain at the hospital. They also don’t consider how this makes their regular underpaid and overworked nurses feel.
Hospital CEOs have been making millions this year. The vaccine manufacturers have made billions. But, it’s the front-line workers who go into work every day for two years now, under protected against the challenges that they face. Somehow, it’s the heroes of 2020 that are now the problem.
If nurse salaries are capped, staffing issues won’t end. Capping pay will only lower the number of nurses willing to put up with the current conditions.
Problems for another day:
The goal of the march has been to make a real change on a set of limited topics. Healthcare has many problems, but the march will address only a few. Maybe in the near future, we can unite for the rest of them.
- High cost of healthcare
- Excessive regulation
- Mandatory vaccinations
- Limited treatment options
Is there a solution?
The complexity of America’s healthcare problems runs all the way up to the CEOs and politicians. It’s a wonder anyone still trusts nurses when those controlling us are the least trusted people in America. I think that trust speaks to the character of people the nursing field attracts. Ultimately, nurses are compassionate people. We spent years in college, struggling with each test so we can help others. The CEOs, managers, and politicians have abused our love for those in need. We’re putting our foot down, but it’s not just for ourselves. It’s for our patients too.
A collective breaking point has been reached. Unfortunately, in the profession we work in, standing up for ourselves and our patients means putting lives at risk. You don’t see nurses strike often. Who would care for all the patients we need to keep alive? If we don’t stand up now, though, there may be no other chance. So right now, we are taking a stand for ourselves and our patients. We ask that you stand with us and help us as we try our best to continue to provide safe patient care.
The process may be painful, but by increasing safety for our patients with good ratios, giving nurses a safe environment to work in, and allowing them competitive pay, maybe, just maybe, we can bring back enough fed up nurses to keep the life support running in the American healthcare system.
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