Now some genius has put together a documentary on the “Longest Running Nursing Shortage in History.” Sound provacative? Well, I haven’t listened to the audio, but if the accompanying blurb is any indication of what awaits us, then I surely would not waste my time listening to yet another fairy tale rendition of the late, great nursing shortage.
Here’s a sample, obviously written by someone living in outer space, or who has absolutely no clue about the evolution, trials and tribulations of American healthcare, or of American social history.
80 million baby boomers are slated to retire in the next decade and they will need a lot more medical care. At the same time many experienced nurses will be leaving the profession. The shortage began after managed care ushered in an era of cost cutting in the early 1990s. Nurses were replaced by lesser skilled workers. In Massachusetts 27 percent of hospital nurses were laid off, the largest number in the country.
The profession became unattractive to women who began to have many other career choices. But as nurses left the workforce, studies showed that patient care suffered. One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that patients whose nurse cares for 8 or more people have a 30 percent greater chance of dying than if their nurse cares for four patients.
Now this tidbit of stupidity makes it sound like prior to the 1990s, there were no problems in nursing, and women did not have any other career choice. From what this dork has written, it sounds like all was fine and peachy, and nurses were wonderful and devoted little drones, happy to be angels of mercy and sacrifice themselves until the big bad corporations ruined everything. Cost cutting triggered the nursing shortage, and as nurses were laid off, doors in other professions miraculously opened.
I can’t even comment. At least not now. I’ve got to have some breakfast first. So in the meantime, if you want to have a good laugh, or cry from sheer stupidity, tune in to the audio.
