GOING ON STRIKE! WE NEED MORE STAFF!
Nearly half of Kaiser workers across the country are on the brink of a massive strike. The strike has the potential to be so huge that it is impossible to imagine Kaiser patients getting any sort of medical care during the strike.
The recurring refrain I see in all of the complaints is STAFFING.
This isn’t just a Kaiser problem, though.
Why is staffing so bad? At all levels in healthcare, staffing levels are horrible. It doesn’t matter the business model. All of healthcare is feeling it..
I recently made a huge career and job change to avoid having to retire early. One of the biggest issues that constantly made our lives in our small practice difficult was staffing. In the first decade and a half of our practice, it was rarely an issue. Then, especially in the last three years, it became a nightmare.
It was terrible on so many levels. “Oh the stories I could tell….” When I talk about this issue, I start to sound like a cranky old man sitting on his front porch, describing the state of the country.
“NO ONE WANTS TO WORK!!!”
It’s not just healthcare! Have you walked into a fast food place lately? Have you heard the news about no teachers? Have you talked to any Human Resources person lately?
You simply can’t hire people! It’s not just wages and benefits as the issue. We’re cranking up the salaries. We try to make the place happier, but no one signs up and no one stays. You advertise for a position and people may even respond, but no one shows up for their interviews.
If they do show up, they ask bizarre questions: “Is it okay if I don’t show up on time? Is it okay if I don’t come to work unexpectedly some days?”
If you do think you’ve found someone acceptable, expect bad things. Be prepared for perpetually late arrivals, no show with no phone call, totally disappearing from work without warning, nonstop phone texting…. And… worse. Some of the behavior is beyond believability or description.
Worse, the basic skill sets of life are lacking for new hires. Common courtesy is missing. Phone skills, in particular, are totally absent. Basic skills such as alphabetizing files are impossible. Writing a simple sentence is simply not possible. Phone messages? Forget it! We had a traditional doctor’s scale but none of the new hires could do the simple math required so I threw it out and installed a fancy digital medical scale. Even then, we still couldn’t get an accurate weight recorded.
To add insult to injury, terminating the person always involves a dispute and sometimes even legal challenges. The employment legal system is heavily weighted against the employer.
It defies imagination, but terrible experiences are the rule, rather than the exception.
Was it Covid? We saw this coming, even before Covid. Yet, the work from home movement happened because of Covid. The problem is: You need people in person when it comes to healthcare. People need to drive to a workplace and they need to show up on time and not suddenly do a “no show” and turn off their phones. They need to be more enthusiastic, instead of treating every task like a huge imposition on their lives.
Pay scales are being increased to substantial levels, but it has no impact. Yes, I get the fact that inflation has strained wages even after big pay increases, but this seems deeper than that.
I take care of a lot of teachers and we discuss the catastrophe of lost learning due to Covid and the permanent damage to current students and the future workforce. Yet, this is not the reason the current workforce is so badly prepared these past couple of years. This is terrifying. It means the worst is yet to come. These damaged kids are only now starting to be released into the workforce and it means the horror will get only worse.
Again… NO ONE WANTS TO WORK! YET, NOT ONLY THAT, NO ONE IS CAPABLE OF WORKING!!!
Can’t wait until the Permanente doctors join the strike!
My whole career as a nurse was working face to face with patients in clinic systems. Obamacare changed the workplace a lot. Small offices closed one after another. Then COVID and all the mandates. Having to wear a mask and face shield for 8 hrs and have management on your back if you don’t, patients unable to understand you, commute “into town”, wages not keeping up with inflation, etc. I work from home now and while I miss my coworkers and patients, I don’t miss all the rest.
“Obamacare changed the workplace a lot”
As a doc in a two physician office for 30 years, don’t know exactly what you mean. Obamacare was pretty much a non-event for us. What changes do you think it made? Thanks.
I guess I have it easy. I have no employees. I do everything myself,(doctor, nurse, reception, billing, janitor). It is hectic but I am more at peace. I don’t make as much but money isn’t everything.
Inflation. It’s not what they say it is. It’s what it causes in the market. Look at John Williams’s Shadowstats. Inflation has been cruising at 10% since 2000 if you use the 1980 metrics before the 1980 and 1990 fudge factors were used to decrease the percentages. That’s a halving of valuation about every 10 years. Million-dollar houses in Boston are just 200K houses at the turn of the millennium. No added value. But the wage gradient for the 99% is flat. Digging a ditch or being a medical receptionist are no different now. People treat lousy paying jobs as barely worth doing. And a production line PA job is no more rewarding than working at Stucky’s. We are caught in the spiral into the dark ages, where effort and ability are a nuisance.
A system of entitlement that is been in place and accelerating for 50 years is the cause. People can make more money not working. In particular, and unmarried woman with children living with her partner is financially better off working part-time or occasionally than full time. Benefits that have become generous diminish the more you work. Add to that assistant of challenging authority or anyone in charge and you add gasoline to the fire.
Even with doctors this has happened. Residents work far less hours and have far less obligations. This translates to a desire for a lifestyle with little call and little weekends requiring an increase in physicians just to do the same work. Not to add the new doctors do not have as much experience managing patients on their own.
Thus, it’s taking two people to replace each baby Boomer as they retire
I’d disagree. People lose the value of hard work if the value of hard work disappears. After WWII there was a sense that hard work can add value to your life. Now, so many jobs have neither worth nor value, just cash. Coding quality analysts save no lives, but are remunerated higher than nursing. Half of employment seems only to be a bit part in The Office. Do nothing, so what? If the dreaded TEOTWAWKI hits, what could most people do to sustain themselves? Looting and robbing have a short productive time span if everyone else is doing it.