Speaker 1: Welcome back to it could happen here a podcast about
Speaker 1: things falling apart and occasionally even about how to put
Speaker 1: some other things back together. UM. Today we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about something that is increasingly a part of what
Speaker 1: we like to call the crumbles around here, which is
Speaker 1: the health care system in this country, in the hospital
Speaker 1: system in this country as it uh kind of gets
Speaker 1: crunched by COVID. UM. And we're gonna particularly talk about
Speaker 1: a really critical aspect of our entire medical infrastructure that
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know about traveling nurses. Uh.
Speaker 1: And with me today is our guest and and you
Speaker 1: are a traveling nurse from New York to California, all
Speaker 1: around the country. UM, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 1: Glad to be here. Yeah. So I live in Colorado,
Speaker 1: and I was a regular staff nurse UM until COVID hit.
Speaker 1: And you know, at that time, we expected it to
Speaker 1: crunch everywhere. UM, but my home hospital, like many places
Speaker 1: that worked on the coast, UM ended up being really
Speaker 1: empty when everybody locked down and stopped getting into car
Speaker 1: accidents and going to parties and all of the other
Speaker 1: things that bring people into the e R. And I
Speaker 1: see us UM, So at that time, I quit my
Speaker 1: full time job and went to New York as a
Speaker 1: travel nurse. UM. And then I've been dancing around hotspots
Speaker 1: since then. So New York, Texas, Ohio, rural New Mexico. UM,
Speaker 1: I just finished my third contract in California. I've been
Speaker 1: up to Oregon. So UM, I've seen the health care
Speaker 1: system working and not working in a lot of different places,
Speaker 1: and also like how much disparity there is different communities
Speaker 1: related to covid as in the health care that we
Speaker 1: can provide. Yeah, and I am kind of before we
Speaker 1: move on to some of the specific things going on
Speaker 1: the travel nurses, what is your sense of like how
Speaker 1: often are you in a place and feel like, well,
Speaker 1: this the hospital system here, this particular hospital, they're they're
Speaker 1: like right on the edge of a breaking point most
Speaker 1: of the time. Okay, that's good to know where your seatbelts, folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, particularly since everyone was able to get vaccinated
Speaker 1: right Like to me, I really feel like that that
Speaker 1: that point of like the tipping point of like the
Speaker 1: quote unquote crumbles kind of like after everybody was was
Speaker 1: able to get their second vaccination, UM, and we had
Speaker 1: so much hope last May and June and things were
Speaker 1: reopening and it was kind of like, wow, things could
Speaker 1: go back to normal. Um, and then like, I don't
Speaker 1: believe that's going to happen. And since then, I've seen
Speaker 1: so much more despair in my coworkers, and I've heard
Speaker 1: about so many more healthcare suicides, um staff, nurses, travel nurses, arties,
Speaker 1: other ancillary people, and you know, the kind of running joke,
Speaker 1: and a lot of workplaces is like, well, I hope
Speaker 1: I test positive for COVID because that would be better
Speaker 1: than coming into work another day. Yeah, all right, I
Speaker 1: hope I get hit by a car so I don't
Speaker 1: have to come in your job, I think, is what
Speaker 1: a lot of people would the people who you know
Speaker 1: are reasonable human beings and see what you're doing is
Speaker 1: incredibly necessary, find that would find the work to be
Speaker 1: something of a nightmare. I mean, it sounds like horrific
Speaker 1: um to have to to deal with this. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not an easy job in the best
Speaker 1: of times, being a nurse, but like with COVID and stuff,
Speaker 1: it's it's just there's so much else on y'all's plates. Um.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that has happened over the
Speaker 1: course of the last year or well almost two years now, UM,
Speaker 1: is that from January the advertised pay rates for travel
Speaker 1: nurses around the country have gone up by about sixty UM,
Speaker 1: which in staffing firms of you know, increase their building
Speaker 1: of hospitals by like so like this huge rays in
Speaker 1: what um travel nurses are demanding and what is getting
Speaker 1: paid out. And I think a reasonable person would go, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, UM, And yeah, I think anybody would go
Speaker 1: any reasonable person would go, well, yeah, of course, you
Speaker 1: guys deserve much more money than that for what you're
Speaker 1: dealing with right now. UM. I have no problem with this,
Speaker 1: But people who do have problems with this are the
Speaker 1: American Hospital Association UM, among other folks generally the folks
Speaker 1: who are seeing this primarily as a well, now we're
Speaker 1: spending more money issue, as opposed to a, hey maybe
Speaker 1: we don't have enough nurses, which right, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: guess I have maybe a couple of comments on that.
Speaker 1: So one of the things about trafical nurses, so if
Speaker 1: if you're not in the travel field and you say
Speaker 1: I want to change hospitals, even if you're an experienced nurse,
Speaker 1: they will take between a month and six months to
Speaker 1: go through their hiring process, and then they will give
Speaker 1: you a week, two weeks, maybe four weeks of orientation.
Speaker 1: So that's a long process to hire a nurse normally YEA.
Speaker 1: For me as a travel nurse, I will talk to
Speaker 1: a recruiter, I will say yes, I will be on
Speaker 1: the road somewhere between four hours to twenty four hours later,
Speaker 1: I will get to the hospital. I will do a
Speaker 1: bunch of paperwork that is for compliance and makes no
Speaker 1: difference at all. I will get between two and six
Speaker 1: hours of orientation, which is basically, here's the bathroom, here's
Speaker 1: the store room, this is what we're going to audit
Speaker 1: in the charts, and then I'm expected to take care
Speaker 1: of complex actively dying patients. So so you know, people
Speaker 1: complain about how much we're getting paid, but if you
Speaker 1: only have two hours of like where's the bathroom, and
Speaker 1: like this is how most of the time when you're
Speaker 1: spending with I t being like, hey I need computer access, buddy,
Speaker 1: and then there you are and you're in the thick
Speaker 1: of it with no backup. You know, so you already
Speaker 1: have to be an expert in your field, and you
Speaker 1: have to be able to walk into an unfamiliar chaotic
Speaker 1: situation and hit the ground running immediately. So, yes, making
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty bucks an hour is a lot of money,
Speaker 1: But I don't know that that's so super unreasonable for
Speaker 1: two hours of like, yeah, it's now to take care
Speaker 1: of people who are actively dying, and don't screw it up.
Speaker 1: It's the way we're told the system is supposed to work, right, Like,
Speaker 1: this is how capitalism is supposed to function. The demand
Speaker 1: for something goes up, and the demand for nursing his
Speaker 1: way the hell up, so the price goes up. Um,
Speaker 1: if you believe in capitalism, like one assumes these people
Speaker 1: who are responsible for you know, paying you and are
Speaker 1: currently lobbying. So what's happening. I should go back because
Speaker 1: we didn't note this. But the American Hospital Association and
Speaker 1: a number of other folks are lobbying Congress right now
Speaker 1: to put a cap on the amount of money that
Speaker 1: traveling nurses UM can uh can can receive, and a
Speaker 1: number of UM congress people have said that they're going
Speaker 1: to be looking into the issue. Several states, Oregon, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kansas,
Speaker 1: and Kentucky have introduced legislation that's attempting to cap nurse
Speaker 1: pay rates. So there's like this huge backlash attempting to
Speaker 1: lock down the amount of money y'all can continue to
Speaker 1: get pay aid UM because of all of the things.
Speaker 1: This country I guess has money for the people dealing
Speaker 1: with the I don't know what. I don't know how
Speaker 1: many millions of additional sick and dying people UM are
Speaker 1: are are kind of beyond what these folks are willing
Speaker 1: to shell out for UM. Have I got the size
Speaker 1: of that? And I mean to clarify so in a
Speaker 1: FEMA contract, so what a lot of the contracts I
Speaker 1: take are. So the nurse is making between a hundred
Speaker 1: and hundred and maybe you also have a tax free
Speaker 1: stipend or you don't kind of depending on how you
Speaker 1: are in that. And then but the bill rate to
Speaker 1: the hospital is usually like tot. So the legislation is
Speaker 1: against the agencies. The agencies are making between forty six.
Speaker 1: Of course, the agency is then going to say, hey,
Speaker 1: well we aren't going to pay you as much because
Speaker 1: we still want the same cut. Yeah, my understanding, so
Speaker 1: the trickle down effect is likely going to be travel
Speaker 1: nurse wages. But my understanding is it's setting the FTC
Speaker 1: to take enforcement against the travel nurse agencies because the agencies,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that say they have the person on
Speaker 1: the phone that says, hey, you have these credentials, we
Speaker 1: want to send you to this hospital yes, or now
Speaker 1: we've got this hotel arranged or we don't or you
Speaker 1: know those types of and we're going to do this
Speaker 1: type of on boarding. So they have their own kind
Speaker 1: of infrastructure and they take you know, half of the cut.
Speaker 1: And so some of those people are making a lot
Speaker 1: of money too. Yeah, And it seems like it's kind
Speaker 1: of the situation where the way this is being framed,
Speaker 1: they're trying to crack down on these people who are
Speaker 1: kind of profiteering or could be argued to be profiteering
Speaker 1: off the situation, um, rather than trying to cap the
Speaker 1: amount that that the nurses can make, so to speak,
Speaker 1: or at least not by as much. But the overall
Speaker 1: effect will be that because of the way these companies work,
Speaker 1: y'all will still wind up making less money. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how um within the traveling nurse community, what is kind
Speaker 1: of where are people right now with this? Like, what
Speaker 1: what is kind of the mood? Um? So I think
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things to note. So in the
Speaker 1: FEMA contracts, they're usually sixty to seventy two contracts, so
Speaker 1: you're working back to back to back to back. So
Speaker 1: I'll do a d our weeks sometimes. And most people
Speaker 1: are not white women like me. This is mostly first
Speaker 1: and second generation immigrants and generally people of color. Um So,
Speaker 1: these are not people that are saving for Lamborghinis. These
Speaker 1: are people that are paying off their student loans because
Speaker 1: a lot of them went to private nursing schools because
Speaker 1: that was kind of what was accessible to them because
Speaker 1: all of the disparity and education and opportunities. These are
Speaker 1: people that are trying to pay off their mortgages. These
Speaker 1: are people who are paying off their parents houses. Um So,
Speaker 1: this kind of idea that like nurses are greedy is
Speaker 1: I think really unfair because most of us are just
Speaker 1: trying to like, you know, make a life that works.
Speaker 1: And also, you can't do a d our contracts fifty
Speaker 1: two weeks out of the year, No, I mean doing
Speaker 1: it for any extended period of time. I've I've worked
Speaker 1: those kind of hours in a generally less stressful working environment.
Speaker 1: Um and it like it breaks you down. Um. Over time,
Speaker 1: like you you can't do that and at any time
Speaker 1: in your life for one thing like um, and you
Speaker 1: can't do that forever. And it sounds like this is
Speaker 1: kind of a lot of people are taking it as
Speaker 1: like this is an opportunity. I can get my parents
Speaker 1: out of debt, I can I can get a house, Um,
Speaker 1: I can say for my kids to I can pay
Speaker 1: off my own college. Like it's a chance for a
Speaker 1: lot of these people by putting in an unbelievable amount
Speaker 1: of effort to get ahead. Uh. And I can't can't
Speaker 1: even imagine the frustration at seeing so many people be like,
Speaker 1: well no, not so fast. And I mean one of
Speaker 1: the things that people are bringing up is right like
Speaker 1: it in the same way that you know, we struggle
Speaker 1: to want to pass minimum wage laws for the minute
Speaker 1: immigrants that pick our food and you know, support this
Speaker 1: infrastructure that is totally unseen now that we have, you
Speaker 1: know what is mostly for stance second generation immigrants that
Speaker 1: are working these FEMA contracts, Like you're targeting a section
Speaker 1: of the population that are not the people that have
Speaker 1: doubled tripled their wealth in the pandemic, right, Like, these
Speaker 1: are not all of the people that got the small
Speaker 1: business loans that didn't need them, and you know, and
Speaker 1: have are just putting all of that money into stock, right,
Speaker 1: is there not? These are people who just want a
Speaker 1: middle class American dream and we're working, will work really
Speaker 1: really hard for it. And I mean there these are
Speaker 1: people who are asking, can I have the thing we're
Speaker 1: all promised? If I spend eighty hours a week watching people,
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases choke out their last fucking breaths,
Speaker 1: is that okay? And a lot of people are saying, oh,
Speaker 1: of course, not right. And you know, so we're taking
Speaker 1: care of dyeing people while we're getting yelled at at
Speaker 1: the phone and of like, is cursing a lot on
Speaker 1: the show or yes, of course? Yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: had a family member saying, you're fucking imprisoning her on
Speaker 1: a ventilator. I'm going to come for you. Where do
Speaker 1: you fucking live? You know we have to get security involved. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we get death threats. I've had people like
Speaker 1: threatened to find where I live and raped me. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, yeah, taking care of your dying loved
Speaker 1: one who also probably would say those same things to
Speaker 1: me because I would say, hey, please be vaccinated and
Speaker 1: they would say fuck you. But I'm still going to
Speaker 1: do everything I can to take care of them, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this abuse and like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave my home and the safety of
Speaker 1: a hospital that works and go into these total cluster
Speaker 1: fox of hospitals where the educator has left, the manager
Speaker 1: has left, the director has left, so there's no leadership.
Speaker 1: It's travelers, some of which are great, some of which
Speaker 1: are also hot messes, and trying to take care of
Speaker 1: these people. Then like, yes, I want to you paid
Speaker 1: accordingly for it. Now would I trade that for a
Speaker 1: social um, a social safety net of health insurance because
Speaker 1: I have to get private health insurance, which is shady. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't get any disability insurance. I have nostick leave
Speaker 1: right because you're you're you're a pinch hitter. You're not
Speaker 1: like salary anywhere. Yeah, But would I trade this high
Speaker 1: salary for a social safety net? Personally I would yes,
Speaker 1: But I mean nobody's going to say, like, yes, you
Speaker 1: will be able to retire with dignity if you play
Speaker 1: by all of these rules. They don't believe that I
Speaker 1: want to make the money. Yeah, it's I mean we're
Speaker 1: all always in this kind of like yes, soccer way
Speaker 1: as much as you can while it's coming situation, and
Speaker 1: she's especially if you're especially if you're doing something you're
Speaker 1: gonna need to recover from later, right, Like this is
Speaker 1: I I you know, I've I've done overseas work. I
Speaker 1: understand kind of the nature of like trauma. And while
Speaker 1: you're doing the job at the rate you're doing it,
Speaker 1: you're also like pushing off a day of reckoning mentally,
Speaker 1: and not having a cushion of savings helps with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like in the middle of it, you're in it, and
Speaker 1: then you know, sometimes it's weeks, sometimes it's months. Um.
Speaker 1: I hiked the Colorado Trail for mental health, and half
Speaker 1: of those nights I had I See you nightmares. So
Speaker 1: I was in these beautiful, the middle of over places
Speaker 1: where everything was quiet. I would wake up with all
Speaker 1: of the beeps and people dying in my head night
Speaker 1: after night after night. You know. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm angry that they don't want to compensate me for that,
Speaker 1: because I mean, they're definitely not paying for my therapist.
Speaker 1: They definitely like aren't giving me access to disability if
Speaker 1: I need it. Right, Like, yeah, because obviously again you're
Speaker 1: you're a contractor. Effectively, Um, there's not like a union
Speaker 1: for traveling nurses, is there? Or Am I wrong about that? No? So,
Speaker 1: I mean the only thing you have each your negotiating power. Um.
Speaker 1: So I have eight years of experience between emergency and
Speaker 1: I see you, um and a lot of very um
Speaker 1: big and highly regarded hospitals. So I'm a hot commodity
Speaker 1: to them, so I can kind of pick and choose, um,
Speaker 1: who I want to work with compared to someone that
Speaker 1: has less desirable specialties. Not that those specialties don't also
Speaker 1: work as hard, but they're just harder. They're easier to staff,
Speaker 1: so therefore they're not It's a it's a market things.
Speaker 1: I definitely don't believe that my specialties are more like
Speaker 1: inherently valuable just in terms of the market. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, so I get I can I have the
Speaker 1: luxury of turning down contracts that aren't what I want.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I have no idea what I'm walking into.
Speaker 1: So on Monday, I'll walk into somewhere. Um, they said,
Speaker 1: you'll do some paperwork, you'll get your orientation, you'll have
Speaker 1: it'll all be it'll be a busy day and then
Speaker 1: you'll be on your own and I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're oriented in one unit and you never see
Speaker 1: that unit again. So um, and I you know, you
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're walking into. And how how
Speaker 1: long are these contracts? Generally? For so, before COVID, the
Speaker 1: standard nursing contract was thirteen weeks UM. Since COVID, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are shorter. And I've only done in
Speaker 1: short contracts because if it's a decent place, then I
Speaker 1: can renew and stay longer usually, and if it's a
Speaker 1: bad place, then I'm pretty happy to get out early. UM.
Speaker 1: So I do between four and eight week contracts, and
Speaker 1: I usually do sixty plus hours a week. Is there
Speaker 1: any kind of like organization that you've seen come together
Speaker 1: a little more between people who are doing this this
Speaker 1: gig since you don't have kind of representation. Is that
Speaker 1: something that started to take form in the last two
Speaker 1: years since COVID. I mean, there's definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about it. Um. I think like those of us
Speaker 1: that started traveling since the pandemic, you know, I would
Speaker 1: say that I've only done crisis contracts, like I've never
Speaker 1: done a normal thirteen week, thirty six hour a week,
Speaker 1: not crisis assignment. Like I've only gone into the ship
Speaker 1: show hot spots, um. And so therefore, like my needs
Speaker 1: and desires are different than somebody who likes that previous lifestyle.
Speaker 1: So in some ways it's a little bit hard for
Speaker 1: us to kind of agree on common goals because we
Speaker 1: have a lot of different you know, we're very diverse
Speaker 1: group of nurses. Um. Definitely, the Million Nurse March is
Speaker 1: kind of a step towards that. Tell me about that
Speaker 1: what what is this? Because I just learned about this
Speaker 1: pretty recently. Yeah, so I dropped off the grid for
Speaker 1: the last five days, which was fantastic for me, but
Speaker 1: it means I'm also just starting to figure it out. Um.
Speaker 1: So the kind of general idea is that you know,
Speaker 1: we have I think, uh, I'm gonna hopefully I don't
Speaker 1: get it wrong, four millions some nurses in the country,
Speaker 1: A huge number of nurses in the country, and a
Speaker 1: huge number of dropping out. Um, you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands quit last year. They think one estimate is five
Speaker 1: thousand make quit this year. And we were just so
Speaker 1: people know, tens of thousands of nurses understaffed, before COVID nation. Yes, right, right, um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think one of the things to
Speaker 1: understand two is that like if you work, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's what's a normal type of job that people work.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you work at the d m V,
Speaker 1: A bookman, Oh right. If you work at the d
Speaker 1: m V and the d m V is slow, you
Speaker 1: will still stay there eight hours and you just get
Speaker 1: paid for your eight hours. If you are a normal
Speaker 1: nurse and you work thirty six hours and the e
Speaker 1: R is running slow, they could say we're just canceling
Speaker 1: you for the rest of the day, go home. We
Speaker 1: won't pay you for those last six hours. And so
Speaker 1: like we've always had pretty like flexible like we've never
Speaker 1: had like most of the places I've worked, I've never
Speaker 1: had guaranteed hours. And so one of the reasons to
Speaker 1: go to travel contracts to is also so you can
Speaker 1: at least have guaranteed hours. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of protections that nurses have never really had, like
Speaker 1: guaranteed hours. UM like UH staff ratios, so some states
Speaker 1: California and organ or um two of them. If you
Speaker 1: go into the i c U, which is the highest
Speaker 1: level of care, so people are actively dying actively unstable.
Speaker 1: Things can go bad within seconds. Usually it's a one
Speaker 1: nurse will have two patients UM, which is pretty much
Speaker 1: all you can handle because they're on multiple drips, multiple
Speaker 1: types of life's the part keeping them alive. So ventilators
Speaker 1: UM being the one that we see the most UM,
Speaker 1: and it's really your responsibility to know every inch of
Speaker 1: that person's body UM and everything going on with them,
Speaker 1: and you really direct a lot of their care UM.
Speaker 1: So two to one kind of makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Since the pandemic and not having enough nurses, sometimes that
Speaker 1: slid to three to one or even in bad situations
Speaker 1: four to one. So one of the statistics that UM.
Speaker 1: One of the kind of nurse influencers and comedians Nurse
Speaker 1: Blake talks about UM is that for every additional patient
Speaker 1: that a nurse takes on, and I believe he's talking
Speaker 1: about med starch not I se you that that patients
Speaker 1: UM mortality increases by seven percent. So yeah, so asking
Speaker 1: a nurse to do more with less is not just
Speaker 1: like hey, just suck it up, be busier. This is
Speaker 1: actively contributing to people's disability and early deaths. So one
Speaker 1: of the things that the million Nurse march UM wants
Speaker 1: to talk about is man man dated staffing ratios. So,
Speaker 1: I see you would be two to one MED starch
Speaker 1: is usually four to one. I think you are. They're
Speaker 1: asking for three to one UM. So these have been
Speaker 1: studied by the American Nurses Association UM and other sort
Speaker 1: of UM nursing organizations UM. And not only do they
Speaker 1: make your job as a nurse so much better because
Speaker 1: we go into nursing because we want to fix things
Speaker 1: and take care of people. We want good outcomes, right Like,
Speaker 1: you don't go into nursing to just run around with
Speaker 1: your head cut off and watch everyone die, right Like,
Speaker 1: that's terrible. You go into nursing because you want the
Speaker 1: people to get better under your care and you want
Speaker 1: to be able to give them that. And so when
Speaker 1: you're asked to take care of more patients than you're
Speaker 1: able to, you're not able to do that and it's
Speaker 1: just crushes you. UM. So not only is it better
Speaker 1: for nurse satisfaction, it also saves patients lives and also
Speaker 1: prevents things that will give cause lasting disability like ventilator
Speaker 1: associated pneumonia or bed sores or delirium things like that.
Speaker 1: So you know, mandating UM patient ratios is one of
Speaker 1: the really big things that the million Nurse marks is
Speaker 1: for UM. There's a lot of talk about pay and
Speaker 1: living wages. You know, like every section. Housing prices and
Speaker 1: inflation have gone through the roof because you've got to
Speaker 1: like be renting a spot whenever you're like the hospital
Speaker 1: only putting you up right well, and for staff nurses
Speaker 1: to write like if you're you know, maybe you're maybe
Speaker 1: they gave you a two percent raise, but hey, rent
Speaker 1: increase UM. I used to be on the interview board
Speaker 1: at my old hospital all and we would just tell
Speaker 1: people like, if you're moving to Denver as a single person,
Speaker 1: we lose most of our nurses because they haven't looked
Speaker 1: at housing. So like they'll accept a job and then
Speaker 1: they'll look replace to live and be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can't afford to live here, so hey, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't ask if you're single moving here, but like
Speaker 1: you probably can't afford to live here with what we're
Speaker 1: going to pay you. I mean, cool, I I It's
Speaker 1: just it's so eternally frustrating that like the one thing
Speaker 1: that everybody when you sit them down agrees is in
Speaker 1: controvertibly necessary medical care. Um. We can agree on a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but not how to make sure that
Speaker 1: people doing it have a good quality of life and
Speaker 1: good income. Like we can we have all these fun,
Speaker 1: fun rules that make it possible to charge X number
Speaker 1: of thousand dollars for a dose of insulin um, but
Speaker 1: we don't just have a law that's like, hey, if
Speaker 1: if you're working full time as a nurse, uh, maybe
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have to be housing insecure. I don't know
Speaker 1: how do you make that into a law, but it
Speaker 1: seems like there should be some option for a country
Speaker 1: that can make some of the things we make. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean tying wages to housing prices. It seems like
Speaker 1: I don't know, not being an economist and not being
Speaker 1: an administrator, like that sounds super easy to me, Like
Speaker 1: everybody gives a race. Sure, I'm sure it's more complicated
Speaker 1: than that, but it seems super simple to send a
Speaker 1: guy around with a stick to threaten landlords when they
Speaker 1: raise rent. Like there's we could debate the answers to this.
Speaker 1: What do you think I mean? Not not that like
Speaker 1: you have any sort of comprehensive knowledge of all of
Speaker 1: the people doing this, But like, do you think there's
Speaker 1: a possibility of like a wildcat strike, which is again
Speaker 1: for people who maybe aren't is when there's a strike
Speaker 1: of workers who are not unionized. UM. I mean to
Speaker 1: some extent, with everybody quitting to do travel nursing, it's
Speaker 1: not so different. I mean, some things have lost eight
Speaker 1: of their staff, right some like when a unit says, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we lost of my staff, I'm kind of like, well
Speaker 1: you did better than most, you know. UM. So in
Speaker 1: some ways it's already happening. And in that same way,
Speaker 1: I am seeing hospitals give better extent incentives to their
Speaker 1: nurses that have stayed um, either retention bonuses or UM,
Speaker 1: increasing bonuses for pick for core staff, picking up extra shifts, UM,
Speaker 1: or kind of other perks like increasing education benefits or
Speaker 1: things like that. So I think hospitals are responding to like, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't want to lose these people to traveling, Like
Speaker 1: can we tip the balance a little bit? And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, overall, hospital leadership is moving slower than they
Speaker 1: need to UM. But I mean at least they're moving
Speaker 1: a little bit. So I mean, in that way, I
Speaker 1: can see a wildcat strike. UM, just coming from the
Speaker 1: kind of labor forces at play. UM, and I could
Speaker 1: and I mean there were one of the hospitals in
Speaker 1: the South, I think it was Alabama, all of their staff,
Speaker 1: their staff coordinated, UM, so that the ship that was
Speaker 1: on agreed to stay late because you can't because abandoning patients. UM,
Speaker 1: you can put your license at risk. Right. So if
Speaker 1: we all walked off in the middle of a shift
Speaker 1: and said fuck you to the hospitals and patients died,
Speaker 1: then like our licenses at risk. So we also have
Speaker 1: to kind of balance that a little bit. But there
Speaker 1: was a hospital they organized for the day shift basically
Speaker 1: to stay as late as they needed, and night shift
Speaker 1: all stood outside of the hospital and I wouldn't refuse
Speaker 1: to clock it in. So sometimes these things are happening
Speaker 1: in small levels. Um. Also UM really interesting. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is like UM, I mean, and that is like such
Speaker 1: a tough thing to balance. Just the idea that like, well,
Speaker 1: you are health care workers, like withholding your labor is
Speaker 1: a thing that's going to be necessary from time to time.
Speaker 1: There's also consequences for it that are not present. If
Speaker 1: you're making I don't know, tires, you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: as much as teachers and nurses are the same. Like
Speaker 1: I don't think our country cares about educating children as
Speaker 1: much as it cares about their parents dying, you know,
Speaker 1: like for better or worse. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: another subject. Um. Is there anything else you wanted to
Speaker 1: get into today? Um? Before we we close out for
Speaker 1: the for the episode? UM, I mean if it's okay
Speaker 1: with you, and you can cut it if it's not. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I try and tweet about kind of what's
Speaker 1: happening on the ground. Yeah, absolutely, and the things that
Speaker 1: I'm seeing. Um. And I'm mostly finished with a book
Speaker 1: about the first year on the front line and seven
Speaker 1: different hospitals and kind of the disparities between you know,
Speaker 1: critical access in New Mexico versus trauma hospitals in you know,
Speaker 1: the Bay Area, and kind of what that first year
Speaker 1: looked like. UM. So if you want, you can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. UM it's an A N N E
Speaker 1: like and of Green Gables and r N, which is
Speaker 1: when I started traveling ur saying, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: so that I kind of talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: like what I'm seeing and what's going on. UM. I
Speaker 1: was recently in an e er where you know, people
Speaker 1: often had to stay outside under the heat lamps for
Speaker 1: thirty hours waiting for a hospital bed just because everything
Speaker 1: was packed so they couldn't even come inside the hospital
Speaker 1: and they were you know, waiting, um to get their
Speaker 1: appendix out and things like that. Again, where your seatbelts
Speaker 1: and a helmet, be real, be real careful right now, guys,
Speaker 1: right um? And I mean I think the other thing
Speaker 1: is the blood shortage. Um, So most hospitals are revising
Speaker 1: their guidelines of who will get a blood transfusion, so
Speaker 1: you now have to be much more critical before they
Speaker 1: will give you a blood transfusion. So um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of politics around blood donation. But if you feel
Speaker 1: like you can donate blood, um, it's really desperately needed.
Speaker 1: And people are gonna where your seats because people are
Speaker 1: really going to legitimately die because we run out of blood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um boy, how do you please wear your seatbelts folks, Um,
Speaker 1: just just hunker down for a little while. No, no
Speaker 1: new risky experiments in life for just a minute. Not
Speaker 1: the time to take up skydiving. Yeah yeah, maybe avoid that.
Speaker 1: Maybe don't go skiing. Uh if you haven't gone skiing before. Um,
Speaker 1: I just did that and broke my wrist because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm exactly as dumb as the people I'm trying to warn.
Speaker 1: And then I guess just check in with your mental
Speaker 1: with your mental health of your health care workers, because
Speaker 1: I mean, so many people have you know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us are dealing with at least passive
Speaker 1: sort of like puck, maybe I should just drive off
Speaker 1: the road instead of going into work today sort of thoughts,
Speaker 1: you know, And oh, for a lot of us, that's
Speaker 1: just that fleeting thought and then we get our shipped together.
Speaker 1: But for some people it's going to be more than that.
Speaker 1: And you know, nursing is one of those things where
Speaker 1: people have to find themselves by their career and they
Speaker 1: need people in their lives saying like, if you are
Speaker 1: never a nurse again, you are still valued, you are
Speaker 1: still loved. Just being alive it is enough, and this
Speaker 1: is how you know we can help take care of
Speaker 1: you if you need to quit for three months, you know, um,
Speaker 1: and supporting people with their intrinsic value rather than like
Speaker 1: you are only productive and valuable because you were there
Speaker 1: saving lives. Because I think a lot of us really
Speaker 1: get stuck in that, and a lot of us are
Speaker 1: drawn into nursing because we feel some lack of worthiness
Speaker 1: without it. You know, Well, that's the hard thing to
Speaker 1: get other people to do, because in part this is
Speaker 1: a society where we just have such generally crummy attitudes
Speaker 1: towards mental health. But like we're great at at saying
Speaker 1: things like, oh, you know, there's a pandemic. Our healthcare
Speaker 1: workers are heroes. You're all heroes because of the work
Speaker 1: that you're doing. The work makes you a hero, as
Speaker 1: a was to saying, hey, thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1: I know things are still fucked up right now, but
Speaker 1: if you decide you gotta like take a break or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're you're. That doesn't mean you like
Speaker 1: what you did was still wonderful and you're still great
Speaker 1: and valuable, and maybe the best thing is for you
Speaker 1: to take that break and not drive yourself off of
Speaker 1: a cliff. Yeah, yeah, that's that's harder to get people
Speaker 1: to like wave banners that say outside of their apartment complexes,
Speaker 1: banging on pots to like let healthcare workers know that
Speaker 1: no matter what they do, their valued members of the
Speaker 1: community that people love. Um. But yeah, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for talking with us today. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope uh you you hold together and help the
Speaker 1: people in your life hold together, which is all any
Speaker 1: of us can really do other than we're a seatbelt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank you for being a part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: And thank you for you know, listening to hard things.
Speaker 1: And you know that's one thing that I think we
Speaker 1: really appreciate it is is to people who will actually listen
Speaker 1: with open hearts and will witness this with us so
Speaker 1: that we're not alone in it. It Could Happen Here
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.