!Skeleton crews
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agk's phlog 
22 May 2021 @ 2027
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written on x61 after work
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Some days, management offers $20 more per hour to 
nurses who pick up and nobody's interested. I'm 
usually already scheduled those days, on the floor, 
interested or not, for base pay--no bonus.

Staff who pick up are exhausted. They worked the 
night before then stayed for bonus pay. They're 
far from their home units and home shifts, on 
unfamiliar turf. We're a skeleton crew, a raggedy 
bunch--spread thin in both senses.

Eight hours into my shift someone no-call, no-
shows to my unit. I'm scheduled to move to another
unit but can't. That would leave my ten patients 
with no staff. I tell first shift on the girls' 
unit I'm waiting for relief and will be there when 
he comes. First shift stays late; he never comes.

There's a chain reaction of other people swapping 
units so none are uncovered. The kids' unit gets 
left with just a nurse for hours. There's a new 
admission. There are behavior problems.

Hospitals are bought by private equity firms and 
rolled up into conglamerates, managed by deskworkers 
in other states who have never been to what they 
manage. They exploit people who need care and people 
who care.

They staff down to the wire. The US has way less 
hospital beds per thousand population than we did 
in the 1970s, less than any European country--and 
way, way less than China.

Management should allow admissions to admit less 
patients til we hire, train, and retain the staff to 
care for them--which takes time! Otherwise they burn 
staff. There's churn, low morale, and turnover while 
healthcare workers seek a place to work that doesn't 
do this.