tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37811152.post8284551644844896475..comments2024-03-20T10:44:38.106-05:00Comments on madness: tales of an emergency room nurse: will nursing unions survive?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37811152.post-38321712366621397262013-04-02T04:44:07.599-05:002013-04-02T04:44:07.599-05:00Unions are outdated when they become a mechanism f...Unions are outdated when they become a mechanism for protecting the slovenly and incompetent, while seeking simultaneously to increase salaries and benefits. (cf. the auto industry).<br /><br />When they seek to prevent dangerous conditions to patients and nurses, they are just what's needed. As the corporate model of healthcare digs in like a tick, trying to run a hospital like an immigrant-staffed sweatshop of the turn of the last century is once again becoming the norm.<br /><br />Unlike you, I've seen unions as primarily a huge PITA, coddling the peopple we should throw out of the profession ourselves, because they do, and we won't.<br /><br />But if they start advocating for something besides just bigger paychecks, they'll make a comeback.<br /><br />As to sending paramedics out to do the equivalent of home nursing care, unions, individual nurses, and state nursing boards need to work in sync:<br />If anyone is attempting to replicate nursing care without benefit of a license, they need to be restrained and injuncted out of existence from our scope of practice. Period.<br />BUT, and this is the part they'll ignore, they need to push with both hands for getting nurses prepared AND DEPLOYED to fill the roles that need doing. If what patients need in the field is nursing care instead of hospitalization, the solution isn't to send a paramedic because it's cheaper than a nurse, it's to send a nurse because they're vastly more qualified than a paramedic AND cheaper than a hospital visit.<br /><br />The problem is, most nurses without a protective hospital cocoon, and suitable practice safeguards, want nothing to do with the liability bomb that is out-of-hospital practice.<br /><br />When even our own profession doesn't have our backs when we're working inside the walls, who can blame nurses en masse for not wanting to go outside on their own, without a safety net?Aesophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07834464741531503378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37811152.post-58040222303579282552013-03-27T19:16:14.380-05:002013-03-27T19:16:14.380-05:00Sounds like China's "barefoot doctors&quo...Sounds like China's "barefoot doctors".FrankChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07349761659165064987noreply@blogger.com