Staffed Bed Shortages
Nov. 28th, 2020 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutWhen reading Covid coverage a lot of times the discussion includes statistics that are collected routinely — were collected routinely even before the pandemic. Numbers like “influenza-like illness’”, “ICU beds” and “staffed beds” are all such statistics.
I would like to shine a little light on the “staffed bed” number. Many times, headlines refer to “staffed bed” percentages (total available out of total that exist in an hospital, a metro area, a state, whatever). When that number gets low, the headline becomes “Bed shortage in Some Place Somewhere”. However, the problem is not the _bed_ part of the “staffed bed”. It is the “staffed” part of the “staffed bed”. And the “staff” part is not the doctors — it is the nurses.
This is a great, detailed look at traveling nurses and nurse staffing companies during covid.
https://khn.org/news/highly-paid-traveling-nurses-fill-staffing-shortages-during-covid-pandemic/
Some things stand out. Notably, that traveling nurses (sometimes? Often? Always?) quit jobs where they are NOT offered better pay to go sign up at a staffing agency where _they are_. And they quit jobs where they are given hopelessly inadequate PPE, to go sign up at a staffing agency, where their contract stipulates _that they will have adequate PPE_. The pay difference is not a matter of a percentage. It is a matter of multiples. As in, add a zero.
Sure, the benefits aren’t there. Sure, sometimes they have to travel a long ways. Sure, they may have bad feelings about working when the previous workers are on strike.
But wow, just look at that multiple.
Litwin, some (male) associate professor who specializes in labor relations at Cornell, remarks: “In the midst of a severe public health crisis, I worry that the individual incentives facing hospitals on the one side and individual RNs on the other conflict sharply with the needs of society as whole.”
Ha ha ha ha fuck you Litwin.
If the hospitals are stupid enough to not pre-emptively keep their nurses by keeping them happy, then they don’t really need those nurses.
If the nurses figure that out, then they are exactly the nurses who should go where the money is best.
Because there is not a hospital on the fucking planet that would pay those rates if they were not absolutely desperate.
You may hate capitalism. You may draw back from believing it makes sense during a pandemic. But there is no Scrooge hoarding nurses at sky-high pay rates, keeping them away from desperate need. This has come down to lots and lots of desperate need.
Why _shouldn’t_ the individual nurses get whatever the market will bear? Because they’re women?
I just hope that a bunch of them remember this in the future, and push their rates permanently higher.
I would like to shine a little light on the “staffed bed” number. Many times, headlines refer to “staffed bed” percentages (total available out of total that exist in an hospital, a metro area, a state, whatever). When that number gets low, the headline becomes “Bed shortage in Some Place Somewhere”. However, the problem is not the _bed_ part of the “staffed bed”. It is the “staffed” part of the “staffed bed”. And the “staff” part is not the doctors — it is the nurses.
This is a great, detailed look at traveling nurses and nurse staffing companies during covid.
https://khn.org/news/highly-paid-traveling-nurses-fill-staffing-shortages-during-covid-pandemic/
Some things stand out. Notably, that traveling nurses (sometimes? Often? Always?) quit jobs where they are NOT offered better pay to go sign up at a staffing agency where _they are_. And they quit jobs where they are given hopelessly inadequate PPE, to go sign up at a staffing agency, where their contract stipulates _that they will have adequate PPE_. The pay difference is not a matter of a percentage. It is a matter of multiples. As in, add a zero.
Sure, the benefits aren’t there. Sure, sometimes they have to travel a long ways. Sure, they may have bad feelings about working when the previous workers are on strike.
But wow, just look at that multiple.
Litwin, some (male) associate professor who specializes in labor relations at Cornell, remarks: “In the midst of a severe public health crisis, I worry that the individual incentives facing hospitals on the one side and individual RNs on the other conflict sharply with the needs of society as whole.”
Ha ha ha ha fuck you Litwin.
If the hospitals are stupid enough to not pre-emptively keep their nurses by keeping them happy, then they don’t really need those nurses.
If the nurses figure that out, then they are exactly the nurses who should go where the money is best.
Because there is not a hospital on the fucking planet that would pay those rates if they were not absolutely desperate.
You may hate capitalism. You may draw back from believing it makes sense during a pandemic. But there is no Scrooge hoarding nurses at sky-high pay rates, keeping them away from desperate need. This has come down to lots and lots of desperate need.
Why _shouldn’t_ the individual nurses get whatever the market will bear? Because they’re women?
I just hope that a bunch of them remember this in the future, and push their rates permanently higher.