Reply #13: A few years ago at a hospital I worked at [View All]

[Horse with no Name]

had a lawsuit.
The family only asked for something like $6 million in damages and the malpractice was so egregious that the jury awarded that as well as an additional $40 million in punitive damages to the family that they didn't even ask for.
The next week, the hospital had a consulting company in to figure out where to cut costs.
There was never any proof, but MANY employees who utilized FEMLA were let go on a layoff.
When I went to work at that hospital, the MEAN experience was 20 years on any given shift. When I left, the MEAN experience was 2 years. Hospitals do not value patient care as they did 10-20 years ago. They do not value experience. They value the bottom line.
Plain and simple.
I had an administrator make the comment the once that nurses were a dime a dozen and plentiful if you threw them a few bucks.
And that is what they do--if you are hurt or injured or sick, they throw you away regardless of your experience.
Then they offer new grads a pittance sign on bonus that indebts them for a year until the next class graduates, then that group of nurses moves to the next hospital offering a sign on bonus. I have never understood why they didn't give retention bonuses. Hospitals want and desire new, young nurses because they generally do NOT use the healthcare benefits except maybe for a Pap smear or other routine procedures.
Problem is that the old warhorses who know how to do the procedures without the technology will never go out of style because when the day comes, and it will, that the healthcare system is completely broken, a majority of the new nurses will leave it droves and we will have to step forward to our calling again because simply, that is what we do and we truly care for the patients.