Re: Nursing Shortage - trust me, the pay is real!

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On 3/10/06, Guru wrote:
> I know nurses as well, and filed bankruptcy for a few before the law changed. I
> have one who just called me the other day who makes $67,000 a year. They make great
> money. But, you want to know why there is a nursing shortgage? Nursing sucks.
> That's what they tell me. Every one of them that I know is a drunk. They all want
> out. The average nurse lasts five years. Do some research on nursing. You solo or
> law school wannabes out there should consider nursing. Make some bank for a few
> years and then go into real estate.
>
> Carol, why did you leave nursing?
>
What, aside from the very real risk to one's health (nurses do get Hep and AIDS from
their patients, along with bad backs), grueling 12 hour shifts, back-breaking work,
s****y hours, mandatory on-call, mandatory overtime, constant erosion of benefits and
respect? And, I got hurt at work one night and realized that I was not going to still
be able to do this when I was seventy. Just a whim, I guess. :) Seriously,those
are all reasons. But the main one I guess is that I just hated the way health care is
going. It's all about the Benjamins now. In the metropolitan area where I worked, I
think there is one (out of maybe 10) non-profit hospitals left. It's not about
providing the best health-care to everyone who needs it, it's about making a profit.
Hospitals build these beautiful new buildings, centers, whatever you want to call
them, then can't staff them because they had to lay off nurses to keep on making a
profit. I'm serious, this happened where I worked. They built a huge new care tower,
then announced they were laying off 250 RNs! Several area hospitals took half of the
housekeeping staff and some dietary aides, trained them for a week or 2 and they
became "patient care assistants" to replace the RNs. Of course malpractice cases in
the area soared. I figured if I was going to be in court because someone died due to
this callous disregard for the welfare of the people they pretend to serve, I was
going to be the one asking the questions, not answering them.