Oh, gosh.
We're on what?
Year three of a pandemic?
And to celebrate, we got a hot new disease on the loose.
If COVID news has exhausted, I regret
to inform you about monkeypox.
So until the virus goes away, be
sure to use only presanitized disposable monkeys.
This new public health threat comes at a time when everyone,
including the government has seemingly given
up on ending the last one.
And when health care workers, and especially nurses, are
feeling seriously mistreated.
I've been bitten.
Choked.
Punched in the mouth, and it's like,
well, yeah, I got punched in the head tonight.
And any other job would be like, what are you talking about?
That poor nurse at your bedside
has probably been through hell with the last 10 or 15 hours.
And then you come in, demanding ESPN?
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, are you kidding me?
You should be demanding TBS.
I'm right here.
Why are we treating our nurses like garbage?
Nurses save lives while risking their own.
We should be honoring them, not treating
them like a human punching bag.
But of course, no matter how much work nurses do,
they're still undervalued like most people who work
in fields dominated by women.
So it's no wonder they're quitting in droves.
The coronavirus crisis has exposed a medical emergency.
That's a serious shortage of nurses.
More than 500,000 nurses expected to retire
by the end of the year.
And if that happens, the US will need
more than a million new nurses to avoid a dire shortage.
A recent study found that one in five nurses
say they are burned out.
Some say they struggle to eat, to sleep
and to stay healthy themselves.
An astounding 68% of nurses have said they
consider leaving their jobs.
And unlike other jobs, nurses are something
the world cannot do without.
No offense to the professional jugglers of the world.
Let's face it, you're going to lose America's Got Talent
to an ugly person who can sing.
Nurses are the backbone of the medical field.
It's an understatement to say the situation
is a national crisis.
Plainly put, if nurses are screwed, we are screwed.
Since 2020, 30% of health care workers
have either lost their jobs or quit,
and 66% of acute and critical care nurses
felt their experiences during the pandemic
caused them to consider leaving nursing entirely.
Even Nurse Jackie got so fed up she quit
to become Pete Davidson's mom.
To be fair, that's 1,000% better than being AJ's mom.
The situation is so dire that during the pandemic
the American Nurses Association urged the federal government
to declare a crisis level human resource shortage of nurses.
And make no mistake, it is a life or death crisis.
There have been many instances where patients did
die that shouldn't have died.
I know that unequivocally.
A burned out nurse is a dangerous nurse.
An exhausted nurse is not a safe nurse.
Unsafe staffing is like drunk driving.
Sure, sometimes we all get home safe.
But every time we're at risk.
I actually graduated in a pandemic.
Having only a year of experience starting in the ICU,
I was a charge nurse.
That means that I'm basically the nurse supervisor.
Someone that has one year experience
is supervising an ICU, where people receive fresh hearts.
So I guess clear eyes, fresh hearts, you can lose.
Well, it's not surprising that after the last two years
health care workers are dealing with burnout
and emotional trauma.
Staffing shortages were already an issue before the pandemic.
Just like my dead butt syndrome.
Other people got it from sitting too much in the pandemic.
I got it from leaving my butt in a locked car
on a hot summer day.
A study from 2018 predicted an estimated shortage
of half a million nursing jobs in the US by 2030.
This is largely due to a wave of baby Boomer nurses
entering retirement and aging population that will require
more medical care, nurses moving away from direct patient care
or leaving the health field altogether because of stress.
I mean, I could have told you the last part
when two nurses quit on me during my dead butt surgery.
Sadly, they couldn't bring it back.
It had a crack in it.
Making matters worse, nursing schools
had to turn away over 80,000 qualified applicants in 2019
due to limited resources, faculty shortages and space
constraints.
It was either that or have substitute teachers play
reruns of house M.D.
every day.
The main lesson you learn is it might
be lupus until it's not lupus.
But the truth is, nurses aren't quitting because they want to.
It's because unimaginable working conditions
have left them with no choice.
Hospitals intentionally maximize profits
by understaffing their units with fewer nurses
than needed to safely care for patients.
There's not a shortage of nurses.
There's just a shortage of nurses willing to work
under those conditions.
They've left because of health care
administrators creating toxic, unsafe working conditions.
Be very clear this is propaganda created by health care
administrators to get away with shitty staffing
so they can save money at patient's expense
and at nurse's expense.
No nursing shortage.
The nursing shortage is just another piece
of health care propaganda like how an apple
a day keeps the doctor away.
That is a lie, unless you throw it.
Intentionally understaffing hospitals
has dire consequences, and we've already started to see
how patients are being hurt.
If you have two people crashing at the same time
and just one of you, there's a lack of staff to attend
to the second patient.
Too many patients with one nurse,
you are going to miss those subtle changes
that can occur with the patient, and that
could be life and death.
On labor and delivery, we sometimes
have to make people wait a really long time when they're
not the most urgent person.
We were so short staffed on my unit that I was the unit clerk.
I was the charge nurse and a staff nurse
with a five patient assignment.
We feel like robots here.
Here's your medications.
Oh, I'm going to listen to your heart, listen to your lungs,
and then you're not going to see me for three hours.
That's not who we are.
Don't give hospitals any ideas about robot
medical professionals or those Boston Dynamics dogs
will be given colonoscopies within a year.
Staffing issues and poor working conditions
have led many nurses to leave traditional bedside staff
positions and become travel nurses.
Travel nurses work short term roles at hospitals, clinics,
and health care facilities.
Not to be confused with time travel
nurses, which is the subject of the new Doctor Who
spin-off, Nurse Why?
It's charming, British, and somehow
never answers the question.
Travel nurses are typically employed
by independent staffing agencies and are
sometimes dispatched to the very hospitals
that are short staffed.
That means not only do travel nurses have more flexibility,
they typically get paid much more
money for the exact same job.
I make up to 10 times with staff nurses make.
My pay is different than a staff nurse
because my pay is dictated entirely by supply and demand.
I'm getting paid too much, people.
Previously, I was a full time registered nurse
at a pediatric facility in Phoenix.
I'm working on cruise ships now as an independent contractor.
Damn, that's how hospitals are bad.
She chose to work on a cruise ship.
They have corona.
They have norovirus.
And now, they have corona norovirus.
You need a ventilator for both ends.
Hospitals should be using their resources
to ensure better working conditions instead of paying
more on the back end because they've
driven their staffers to take short term travel contracts.
Bedside nurses are indispensable!
They do everything!
They're overworked.
They have to do things that it doesn't take a nurse to do.
Like what?
Baths, walking patients, turning patients.
REPORTER: That work is important for patient care
and is usually handled by aides.
Now, they're in short supply too.
So in some hospitals, nurses have had
to mop floors or empty trash.
Nurses more so than doctors, spend much more
time with individual patients taking
care of their acute needs.
Even when those needs are unusual.
I had a patient in the ER, and he was yelling in pain.
He was yelling up and down my emergency room.
Not-- like, just got out of his room
and, like, with the biggest boner I've ever seen.
And he goes, what am I going to do with this dick?
Don't do coke and Viagra.
She's right.
cocaine and Viagra is how Mikey from Life cereal died.
Mikey liked it too much.
One way hospitals can improve working
conditions is by mandating nurse to patient ratios.
Research has found that nurse understaffing is
associated with poor patient outcomes
and lower odds of survival.
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees
mandating nurse to patient ratios is the answer.
Hospitals claim that ratio laws don't
give them enough flexibility.
But nurses are calling them out on their bullshit.
It's all about cutting costs and shifting more money up
to the shareholders and CEOs and less money down
to the actual hands on care.
The money is there because the patients are there.
They say that they will not pay nurses and doctors more
because they can't afford it.
Yet, they still keep getting million bonuses for their CEOs
every year.
It's even ruder to doctors and nurses
when those CEOs are carried through the hospital
like kings.
California is the only state in the country
to require a minimum nurse to patient ratio
in every hospital unit.
Studies have shown it's resulted in higher employment
of nurses and hospitals and reduced nurse
injuries by more than 30%.
It should be obvious that other states should follow
in California's footsteps.
But the hospital industry is invested in blocking changes.
In 2018, the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association
spent $25 million to ensure voters would reject
a ballot proposing mandating nurses to pick
patient ratios, which is great.
Because that 25 million could have gone anywhere else
like [BLEEP] paying nurses.
We need to pass federal legislation
to support our nurses and ensure safe staffing levels.
Lives are at stake.
If our health care industry continues to prioritize profits
over people, we are doomed.
We have to protect nurses.
They are the ones providing hands on direct care.
And in health emergencies, put themselves
at risk to save others.
We need to ensure nurses are paid well, not overworked,
and that they receive the support they need
to do such a demanding job.
At the very least, maybe people shouldn't
yell at them to turn on ESPN.
Yell at them to turn on TBS.
We've got Young Sheldon now.
We'll be right back.
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