By Dennis Kosuth
A NURSE I work with recently raised her concerns with supervisors about understaffing and patient safety in the emergency room. While she spoke to two different people on two different occasions, she was given the same exact response: "You're lucky to have a job."
In short, she was told to shut up, keep her head down, and do her job without asking questions. This sort of blatant disrespect to health care workers on the front lines of a broken system is rampant across the industry. In these tough economic times, managers think they can get away with this because of the fear of layoffs amid the bleak economy.
To be sure, the health care industry has continued to create jobs during the recession, and it will see 20 percent employment growth above 2006 levels by 2016. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since the official start of the recession in December 2007, more than 600,000 jobs have been added to the health care industry, even as the economy overall has shed 7.7 million jobs over the same period.
However, the pace of health care jobs being added has slowed in the past year. Some hospitals across the country are seeing cuts in Medicaid payments, while many public hospitals are facing layoffs due to state budget constraints. So although the health care industry is generally seen as recession-proof, 2009 was a high point for mass layoff incidents, defined as 50 or more workers from one employer.
In other words, the recession is hammering health care, too. As people have lost their health insurance following the loss of their jobs, the number of hospital visits have declined, cutting into hospital income. This only guarantees a future crisis, as the health of the uninsured goes unmanaged and deteriorates. The result will be more visits to emergency rooms and public hospitals, which will add further strain to an already stressed system.
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