Every religion prioritizes care for the needy. Christianity’s Benedictine Rule, for example, puts care of the sick atop the moral order, “above and before every other duty.”
Really – even above the holy Wall Street mandate that medical and insurance conglomerates must squeeze every last penny of profits out of America’s corporate-care system? Well, gosh, they say, let’s not go crazy with this religious stuff! There’s morality… and then there’s business.
Consider how today’s monopolized and financialized hospital networks treat nurses – the high-touch frontline people who do the most to put care in “healthcare.” Paid a pittance, thousands of nurses across America are now organizing and unionizing against the inequities of this system. The nurses core grievance, however, is not their pay, but the gross understaffing imposed on them and their patients by profiteering hospital chains.
In a national survey, more than half of nurses feel “used up” and “emotionally drained.” Why? Primarily because executives keep goosing up profits by eliminating care providers, making it impossible for the remaining, stretched-out staff to meet their own high moral standard of care. That’s demoralizing for nurses… and deadly for patients.
Yet, corporate-care lobbyists loudly squawk that hospital chains can’t afford to pay fair wages and fully staff-up. Ironically, one of the loudest squawkers is the hospital mega-chain, Ascension, a Catholic church offshoot proclaiming to be “rooted in the loving ministry of Jesus as healer.” Some healer. In a devilish partnership with a Wall Street huckster, Ascension has been slashing nursing staffs while paying its CEO $13 million a year, hoarding $18 billion in cash, and allotting a pitiful two percent of its budget for charitable care of the poor.
What the hell! To help battle health care greed, go to NationalNursesUnited.org.
Photo courtesy National Nurses— Austin nurses locked out after a strike.
I am fine and wonderful now. BUT! I had a surgery go awry in 2021. It was an example of corporate messes and a narcissistic doctor. A few LPNs saved me. I have found that RNs can be as corporate as the doctors who have guzzled the corporate Kool Aide. They believe the crap that is thrown at them. Also, they make pretty good money, not so the LPNs.
Also, I was raised Catholic. You are correct. They are one of the worst corporations. I think they invented the idea of protecting money for the rich and keeping it from the poor.
I am so grateful for your ability to keep us informed in an engaging manner, while adding hope. So many Leftie periodicals are straight on negative.
100% on Catholics, it's their whole history.
Still raping boys after all these years. Sick fucks! child molesters and Fascists should have their necks stretched.
Still raping boys after all these years. Sick fucks.
There will be a day of reckoning. Corporations should stay out of healthcare.
And insurance, and housing, and most of all, POLITICS.
And Religion
But that's what corporations are, moving money government sanctioned legalized fictions of non-responsibility
I agree! My daughter-in-law was so excited to finally get her nursing degree (at a huge cost, I might add!) but her first job was a nightmare. It was at a large, Catholic hospital near Portland, Oregon. Her shifts were constantly under-staffed and she and the other nurses were so overworked. They had so many patients to care for that there was no time to do their charting until after their 12-hour shifts were over. They ended up staying extra hours just to get the information entered for each patient. Plus her schedule was constantly changing, so every week was different. She's now working at a clinic with regular hours and better benefits. Greedy hospitals administrations should have 3 eight hour shifts in 24 hours, with extra nurses on each shift. They can certainly afford it!
Of all the sweeping generalizations to give one group of people a bad name! We are not Catholics (we are, in fact, Lutherans). But please, people, think of how many Catholics you know. How many are corrupt and greedy? They did not invent this system. In fact, through most of their history, they have practiced charity and healing, especially in the monasteries. One of the worst offenders is Atlanta's own Emory Healthcare system, which is associated with the Methodist church. Hate to say it, folks, but most civilized countries do not have this problem. It seems to be uniquely American. So do we roundly condemn all Americans? Or all healthcare providers? Push the pause button, please.
Doctors put you into the hospital: nurses get you out. Dan M, M.D.
Thank you! I happily retired from nursing a couple years ago, but the stress on my bod lives on. I remember being told by a manager that since there were no CNAs we RNs would have to give patient baths. As well as all our own work - which usually sent me into overtime (which I would ger written up for). I said to the Manager that when CNAs gave baths, everyone looked as if they had been to the spa. When I give a bath they look as if they went through a carwash. I simply did not have that skill, though I could dress complicated wounds, check lung and heart sounds, hang IVs, and consult with docs about sudden and significant changes in a patient's status, take orders, call the pharmacy, and wait for meds to arrive while comforting the patient and family. As well as taking care of 6-8 other patients. The suits in the C-suites should not be allowed to decide nurse:patient rations without first working on the floor with a patient assignment.
Thanks Jim for exposing this hypocritical scandal.
Perhaps the truth will set us free to create a genuine health care system independent from profit schemes.
Doctors too are unionizing for essentially the same reasons.
If you want to see the paradigm changing solution read Commonsense Medicine: Healing the Body from the Inside Out & Stopping the Next Pandemic. Available at Amazon.
What is the AMA for, then? Isn't it supposed to represent doctors?
I am fortunate to have (and be able to afford, as he is a "concierge" doc) a PCP who is not in a practice owned by private equity. But many of my other doctors, specialists, complain about the restrictions on their ability to care for their patients because of the corporate restraints on them. Capitalism has gone too far here--and until we stop shaking in our boots when someone says "socialism" we will continue to suffer.
vote in Kennedy as President and end the corporate take over
Democrat and Republican Party opposite cheeks on the same ass. This does not mean that there are not good people in each party but the party controls the majority
WELCOME to American Greed, reThuglican style! GOP 'conservation' means has come to mean use 'insider information' to channel all the illicit $$$ to their bank accounts/stock portfolio/wallet, ad nauseum. The GOP has strayed far and wide from their original 1850s tenets and bears almost zero resemblance to those guidelines. Greed and 'to hell with 'the people' they were elected to represent!
Lincoln's Party was called the Radical-Republican. it bacame the democrtic-republican and then democratic. meanwhile the PRO-slavery whig party became the Grand Old Party. I never saw anything all that grand about them; but they used to be more or less sane.
Nurses do almost all of the work. I saw my doctor maybe three times for a total of fifteen minutes over four days in the hospital.
Have you seen the recently discovered "Gospel of Mary Magdalene"?
We must strive to be in perfect balance with nature and respectful of the art of God and realize that your life is a gift from God, what you do with it is your gift to God.
Many church goers have informed me that the Bible says that we are imperfect. Our Planet Earth attempts to create a livable ecosystem for every living species and all life spirit tries to keep the body alive. " The ghost inside making damn sure the body doesn't die" Brown Bird.
It's the inherent problem with the Corporate Culture Economic structure. First and foremost is to create a monetary gain and life is expendable and cuts into their profits . The Bible also says "Beware false prophets. profits." Ban Fracking Now! Water For Life! Got Oxygen?
Thanks for shedding some light (& sharing the link)on the topic.
The legal construct of the "Corporation" (as in LLC) needs to be eliminated from the planet. I don't see where it does anyone but the incorporators any good. Unfortunately, our incumbent President made filing as a corporation in Willmington, Delaware his life's work. So who's going to do anything about it? DJT?, The Supremes? Ugh.
The dollar symbol is a U and a S superimposed on the other.
Coincidentally, I was just in an Ascension hospital in Waco, Texas for about 5 days. This hospital must have been out of the norm because I could not have hoped for greater care and friendlier, more competent,nurses and other staff. The associated doctors were also remarkably good.
it would break my heart if you ever quit "pissing into the wind"
Most of the loud "Christians" are about as Christ-like as Stalin. And hypocrites were about His least favorite people. He never said a lot about ordinary human vices- drinking and cussing as such. He did say"don't commit adultery". But hypocrites were number 1 on His shit list. And greedheads seem to be right behind them.
Thank you, Jim, for sharing this info with us. I had my first hip surgery 6 years ago at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ. The nurses were woefully understaffed. It was a horrendous experience! Yet I see the hospital is rated highly.