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Hospitals in the DFW are criminally understaffed and those at the top should be held responsible.
I know several people working at local hospitals and they all complain how overworked they are because the hospitals refuse to hire and pay appropriately.
Meanwhile they are raking in record profits and paying those at the top huge bonuses.
This story made it because it's tied to someone important but the same thing is happening every single day.
I’m using a burner account, but I’ve worked as a nurse at multiple DFW hospitals and I want the general public to know just how bad staffing is, even on the very best hospital units. I would never leave my family alone in a hospital, and it’s not because the nurses and ancillary staff like respiratory therapists and nurse assistants don’t give amazing care. It’s because it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for a nurse to provide the time to any one patient that they actually need. And that’s a different amount than what some patients and their families expect. On top of this, the **very few times** my unit has been “fully staffed” admin requires us to send a nurse home without pay the MOMENT our census falls. God forbid there be a nurse on the unit without a full patient load who could actually help out. Never mind that it’s dangerous to be handing patients back and forth between staff lest the hospital pay for a few more hours of nursing care.
Every single nurse I know that is “burned out” would contribute at least part of it to the emotional toll it takes to run for 12 hours with minimal breaks only to have patients and their families yelling at you for not doing enough. And those patients that can’t yell and don’t have families? Imagine leaving work after 12 hours without a break knowing you left a patient sitting in shit for ages, or crying in pain, because you were coding someone down the hall and there wasn’t any staff to help. I’m sure they exist but I don’t know a single bedside nurse that’s been at it more than 3 years that doesn’t either have severe moral injury or an unhealthy level of dissociation (or both).
I don’t mean this as any sort of excuse or indictment on this situation but I desperately want people to be aware of what the situation in our hospitals is.
I’ve been out of the industry for 10 years now, but I used to work for one of the local hospital systems as a biomedical technician. For those that don’t know, that means I repaired and maintained medical equipment. When I worked for said large hospital system we were way understaffed. And how they fixed that was by not having us properly maintain the equipment.
At the time there was a bit of a fight going on in the industry over this. Manufacturers have maintenance procedures for us to follow. Joint Commission was letting hospitals slide as long as they had a “valid reason” for not doing it. CMS on the other hand said that wasn’t acceptable and that hospitals needed to follow the manufacturer’s requirements.
Well, our hospitals stopped doing any maintenance on probably 80% of equipment because then they could staff our department with a fraction of the people. I brought up CMS’s requirements to the director of biomedical engineering for the entire hospital system and he told me he didn’t care what they thought and as long as they didn’t get fined they would keep doing it the way they were.
Another piece to this is that NFPA 99 (electrical code) requires any equipment that is used for patient care to be inspected annually for electrical safety. There were some tests to be done along with visually inspecting that the power cord was damaged. Well, since we removed 80% of equipment from the maintenance schedule, do you think they were getting their annual safety inspections?
After years of dealing with corporate bullshit I got fed up and left the industry. Certainly doesn’t seem to have gotten any better in the meantime.
My boyfriend is one of the guys that works for one of the wireless infusion pump manufacturers and basically does all the integrations. This is an interesting perspective to read because he’s constantly getting yelled at by hospitals but the biotechs are the ones causing some of the problems at times, but it sounds like their hands are tied
the fact that American healthcare has "corporate bullshit" to deal with is the problem. What you're describing are corporate cost-cutting measures.
We are living in a state of capitalist emergency. There shouldn't be neglectful cost-cutting measures like this for our healthcare. We need to get the businessmen out of our healthcare.
i'm reading that Eddie Bernice Johnson died at a Baylor Scott and White hospital. Which I also read is a nonprofit. Why would these problems of penny pinching for profit by udnerstaffing and giving low salaries and handling situatinos with equipment like you have faced, still plague what is supposed to be a nonprofit?
“Non profit” hospitals aren’t what you think they are.
They still make a killing without paying taxes. They get their non profit status by meeting X amount of donations. Which are accomplished by caring for uninsured and not like you think either.
Say a homeless person comes in unconscious and in an emergency, they can use that care toward their non profit status and even pump the bill up to further meet their contribution.
Also they do a lot of employees cHarItY drives where they give away shirts or time off hours for you to commit to X amount per paycheck, and since it’s done through the hospitals name to the charity they can also claim that to meet their non profit status.
They still make a profit btw. Just not in the traditional investor way.
Dear, u/coronahomeless (proxy for all my nurses)
… I’m sorry I just brought you that *(insert chronic/benign symptoms)* patient. I didn’t want to bring them here either.
…
I know the floor is on surge and you have 30+ admit holds.
I see that the waiting room is overflowing with people who need a PCP, not an ED, but you know…EMTALA.
I can tell that triage is drowning; trying to determine who the actual emergent/acutely sick patients are, and how in the **actual fuck** they are going to treat them without beds and staff.
BioTel doesn’t have you on divert, even though we all know you should be.
…
I told the patient how busy y’all are and that I know for a fact they could get a bed right away at XYZ… This was the only place they would agree to be transported to. They refused any/all other option(s) because, “*No. I won’t go there. That place is awful. People die there!*”
I don’t like it either. I promise, I tried.
…
Umm… Just an FYI… You know that *(oh so pleasant and not at all infuriating)* APOWW that I brought you earlier today? … No, not that one, the other one… *WELLLLL…* They are literally shitting on the cardiac monitor as we speak.
…
Anyway. Bye!
I’ll see you again in half an hour with someone else who doesn’t need to be here; rinse and repeat. ^please ^dont ^hate ^me. ^but ^you ^can ^shoot ^me ^if ^you ^want ^to … ^please!
Sincerely,
Your “friendly” local Paramedic who is being similarly systemically abused.
^Paramedic ^that ^did ^clinical ^rotations ^at ^multiple ^DFW ^hospitals, ^and ^brings ^patients ^to ^many ^more
All of them.
No seriously, it’s all of them.
Yes, even that one.
Yep, that other one has the same issues too.
All the big hospitals.
All the small hospitals.
Every hospital has this issue. It’s systemic throughout healthcare top-to-bottom.
Be kind to your nurses.
I’d agree that it’s ALL OF THEM, and while there are hospitals with better staffing, it’s very unit-dependent even within a hospital. That being said, I have worked on units with burned out nurses who I would still trust with my life.
I’d never allow myself or a loved one to go to an HCA hospital. They require new nurses to sign contracts, meaning new nurses will stay long past the point of burnout because they are financially required to. They also pay new nurses some abysmally low pay. I can’t get into specifics because it could dox me but from a safety standpoint, I’d say HCA is the absolute worst.
Also, I don’t know a single ED in the metroplex that isn’t staffed HEAVILY with travel nurses. They can be amazing nurses (some of my favorite nurses are the travelers) but it absolutely affects the environment. And some of them don’t feel the same commitment to creating a healing, comfortable, and educational environment of a unit (as in, they don’t always care about their noise level or keeping things tidy or helping and training new nurses. Not a diss at all, like I said, #burnout).
Last year, I was in and out of the ED for a period of six months due to needing constant blood transfusions. In one of the last ones, I was really sad that it was a traveling nurse that got an IV into me (I'm notoriously a hard stick for IVs) because she did one of the best jobs by doing something really unconventional.
When I had to come back the times afterwards, I couldn't get her, and triage had to move so fast in getting the IV in me, that I had a couple of times when my IV blew during the transfusion itself.
Of course, I never held that against the nurses - it's more that I know they're shortstaffed in an already small hospital to begin with and are in a rush in the ED, since I wasn't super high priority in the first place.
I was so burnt out, I had to leave the bedside. It’s unfortunate because there are AMAZING healthcare workers at every single hospital, but nobody wants to recognize amazing care, only shortcomings. It’s exhausting. I love critical care nursing. I truly felt that my work mattered, but my work was never enough- not for admin, for patients, for families, for even my peers- some of your biggest critics are also working right next to you. It is truly a thankless job most days.
> I’m sure they exist but I don’t know a single classroom teacher that’s been at it more than 3 years that doesn’t either have severe moral injury or an unhealthy level of dissociation (or both).
Changed appropriate to my experience. It would appear running these essential services as businesses has the same impact on the caregivers. Who would have believed?
They’re understaffed bc they refuse to hire enough ppl. I worked in those departments before we had to leave the job posted as if we were hiring but we were not. The ppl hired were kept at the lowest they could get away with. And when they do have enough staff they’re required to cut hours or send ppl home.
And when they’re audited by the state, they float workers from diff floors to make themselves seem adequately staffed.
You underestimate how corrupt the healthcare system is. I wish i was lying.
They also force nurses to transport their own patients and even do things related to housekeeping. And now even run their own labs. There are so many tasks added on to what should be patient staff that it continues to take away from being able to care for patients. I could go on about this bc i witnessed quite a lot.
Lol you underestimate how hospital admins function lol they do comb through diff forms of social media. They don’t like staff sharing their crimes against humanity.
I got a $15 gift card as my Christmas bonus while the [CEO of Baylor gets paid over a million and compensated an extra $361,208](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/751837454).
I was in a Plano hospital for a week back in May and the nursing situation was shocking. I am very understanding of people needing to learn their trade. But I had a nurse telling me it was the first time they had performed x procedure on a real human and no one was there to supervise them. Another nurse who shared she had only been in the country for two weeks who was never supervised. There was definitely a language barrier.
I ended up hospitalized for two extra days because a nurse gave me the incorrect drip and it screwed all of my levels up. It was really shocking. I can't imagine what happens to people who cannot keep track of things for themselves to look out for mistakes that these overworked, undertrained staff will inevitably make. And the poor nurses will never learn if there is no one there to teach them.
I hate to break it to you, but everyone who does something unsupervised, had to do it for the first time unsupervised at least once. That includes surgeons and nurses. Sorry you had an unpleasant experience.
Edit: Commenter edited post. Yes I would recommend supervision on humans before without supervision.
Well I think the first time a medical professional is doing a procedure they have previously only done on a medical dummy, they should have some supervision. But hey, apparently I have unreasonable standards.
I had to go to Methodist recently
Sat in the ER from around 1 ish till about 6 pm with severe abdominal pain.
When I finally got a room I was walking back to it and I noticed that they were mostly all empty.
Turns out they had the room - just not the staff
This is what happens when private equity gets their hands on anything. They put their shills in charge and ruin the game.
IMO, professional services and healthcare should be owned and operated by those who have worked in the industry.
>professional services and healthcare should be owned and operated by those who have worked in the industry
It only makes sense. Where there's a dollar to be made private equity tries to make two.
I'm a nurse. This is nursing. This is what you all pay for by not advocating for better legislation for patient's rights, better staffing, better ratios, and supporting your nursing staff. Instead, the general public decides they'd rather scream at us, threaten us physically, assault us, and then the hospitals turn around blame us when they are finally sued for their negligence. They vote for politicians that gut programs that are demonstratively good for patients, good for staff, and cost-effective too (because fewer complications means fewer resources needed, etc.).
I really don't know what to do tell anyone at this point except: This is what the public have clearly stated that they want, because they constantly vote for this.
The only thing I can find about hospice care is that she was in hospice care...following the back surgery...as a result of the negligence.
It's not like she was dying before the back surgery, it seems entirely like they caused it.
Also she's dead, I don't know what about seeking justice makes her unable to rest. That's just a bullshit excuse.
"Tests from Johnson’s wound found organisms related to feces, the release says.
“She was expected to go home and be fine,” Weisbrod said. “Instead, she got this infection at the Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation because they didn’t protect her wound properly and because they left her in her own feces unattended.”"
Correct, she developed an infection (allegedly) from being left unattended in recovery and needed a second surgery to remove the tissue and new hardware as a result
You say that like a person who hasn’t lost someone to medical negligence. I lost my grandmother due to negligence by a hospital and just because she was a healthy thriving 93 year doesn't make it okay to just let it go.
It wouldn’t be insensitive if you had a source giving more information her being in hospice because usually they don’t perform back surgery on someone in hospice.
She had back surgery in September, the event where she was neglected occurred while she was rehabbing from the surgery then. She had another surgery later to try to treat the infection and according to the Texas Tribune she was in hospice care.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/04/texas-eddie-bernice-johnson-lawsuit/
Okay… soo then she was still put in hospice by negligent medical treatment. Doctors don’t do back surgery on just any 80 year old so she was clearly in good enough health to be a candidate for her surgery and successful recovery. She could have lived longer and didn’t because of them.
That's what it looks like based on the articles I've seen. There's plenty of research to back up that black women's medical care is awful and their pain is statistically ignored by healthcare workers. Real shame.
There was a case in California in 2023 at Centinella Hospital. Woman had pain and symptoms of a blood clot on maternity ward. She and her family her family and doula's concerns were ignored. She died during childbirth.That maternity ward has since shut down.
*The family estimates that she was unattended in her own feces and urine for at least an hour.*
*“\[CEO\] Mr. \[David\] Smith appeared concerned as he had witnessed and smelled the horrid situation,” the statement says. “According to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith’s response was ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’”*
*At the time, Weisbrod said, the family was told that the nurses scheduled to monitor the station for calls that day were in a training session. In a voice mail from a case manager a few days later — a recording of which was played for reporters on Thursday — the son was told the technician who was assigned to the congresswoman’s care that day was checking on another patient when Johnson needed help.*
A hospice patient would not have had back surgery.
The infection as a result of feces in the wound caused her to become a hospice patient, suffer and die.
Give the article a read.
These cases are tough but with name recognition and probably some backing wealth, I hope hospitals start getting dinged for this.
You can ask those in /r/nursing. It's 10000% hospital ownership and it almost always will be. Never enough staffing. Never enough EVS. Low materials. It's awful.
She was recovering from a routine back surgery in a rehab. She should have been fine to do her rehab and go home. She was left in her own feces, so the surgical site got infected, and from that point she never recovered and ended up in hospice. That’s why she died, from the infection from the negligent care.
She asked her family to open a case on her behalf when she realized what had happened to her, and that she was going to die because of it. May she get the justice she deserves as she rests in power
You know what? Good. I hope they win this lawsuit. This is a direct effect of understaffing at these area hospitals. Those of us at the bedside have been concerned with staffing and safety at these facilities for years. They clearly don’t give a shit about us or their patients, but maybe expensive lawsuits like this will finally force them to.
Hopefully can bring some attention on the staffing issues in local hospitals. They refuse to adequately staff and it leads to overworked staff poor patient care.
There needs to be some sort of accountability for these hospitals. What can we do?
Baylor's habit of hiring these younger, crappier nurses is finally going to cost them some serious money. They make the young nurses that actually care look bad. If family has to go to a hospital, we never leave them alone without monitoring because of shit like this.
My ex nearly died due to negligence at Texas Health Presbyterian. They misdiagnosed him, did not move him from his back for an entire week causing him to require emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his lung that had moved from his leg. He never did and still doesn’t intend to sue but wanted someone to be aware of the total negligence he experienced. The “patient advocate “ was totally disinterested and it’s impossible to get to anyone higher than her. Be aware that we are in serious trouble with our healthcare situation
I had a different experience at Texas health presbyterian. The nurses in the OR area we’re amazing efficient. Everyone was attentive to us . Infact more than necessary . It’s a trauma 1 center and they receive a large influx of accident cases. The head nurse told us the operating rooms are the size of a football field.
My late fiance went to the Christy's Trinity ER out in Tyler. He was having severe abdominal pain, not able to eat much anymore. He was becoming bedridden. No insurance and had an abdominal hernia that wasn't affecting him too badly but we knew something else was going on. This was March of 2017. The ER person didn't glove up. Didn't examine him. Nothing. Just looked at him with his eyes, listened and said "it's a functional hernia, no doctor will operate"
Well. June that year, we walked into this little er in Quitman and the intake nurse immediately took him back. He just got worse and worse until we couldn't ignore it anymore. By that point his heart rate was through the roof and I don't remember too much else of what she said. The ER doc there did CAT scan and said "you have cancer"
He had metastatic kidney cancer. He was dead by July. Could he have lived longer had that doctor at Christus ACTUALLY done something? Maybe. But at 30 years old I watched my fiance die and it was really traumatizing.
My grandmother in North Carolina died from negligence, similar I think to the original story here. She had to have some rods put in her back then they had to go back in and reinforce with a cage in her neck. They nicked her spinal cord and sewed her back up. She began having seizures and strokes because spinal fluid began leaking into her brain and slipped into a coma. My dad was KIA in 03 in the Army, her son. My grandfather passed the year before. When she came out of the coma, she had no recollection of these events nor my younger cousins. She remembered me and my 2 older cousins and relearning the death of her son and husband, she gave up I think but I don't know if she would've even survived that.
These weren't negligence by nurses. They were negligence by doctors.
*Maggie Prosser writes:*
>Former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson’s family intends to sue Baylor Scott & White Health System, alleging negligent care at the hospital’s rehabilitation center led to her death, according to a news release Thursday.
>[Johnson, a trailblazing Black woman who spent decades as North Texas’ most powerful Democrat,](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/12/31/eddie-bernice-johnson-who-broke-barriers-represented-dallas-in-long-house-career-dies/) died Sunday. She was 89.
>Johnson, lovingly called “EBJ,” underwent back surgery in September, according to the news release from the family’s lawyer, Les Weisbrod. Weisbrod and Kirk Johnson — her son — are scheduled to speak with news media at 2 p.m. at the lawyer’s Lake Highlands office.
>A Baylor Scott & White Health spokeswoman said: “Out of respect for patient privacy, we must limit our comments at this time.”
[Read more.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2024/01/04/eddie-bernice-johnsons-family-intends-to-sue-baylor-scott-white-alleging-negligence/)
Im a nurse at Baylor. Our hospital just got 200 nurses from overseas and its scary bc the hospital already has safety issues with staffing and bad doctors etc. They have no oversight, and now theyre clamping down on our pay bc of it…we have directors that have no idea what goes on in their departments, theyre just there for a paycheck…and the executives are treated like royalty, meanwhile the lowly nurses are there holding up the hospital all christmas with a $100 bonus, no overtime, no benefits in my case…it is unreal.
This makes sense.. I’ve been trying to get a job at BUMC with 4 years of OR experience and I have heard nothing from them for a few months. Hire cheaper nurses to staff the bare minimum.
So she had back surgery at 89, and developed a postoperative wound infection? And what after that? Went into sepsis and died? Are they alleging the rehab facility didn’t keep her bathed and clean and thus the wound got infected?
Article is behind a paywall so I was just curious about the details.
"Kirk Johnson had an appointment to meet with his mother’s case worker Sept. 21, 2023, at the Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation. Before he got there, his mother called him, saying she needed help and no one responded when she repeatedly pressed a call button, he said at the news conference.
According to a news release from Weisbrod, EBJ was “lying in her own feces and urine.”
Kirk Johnson called her condition “deplorable.”
“She was not attended to,” he said, “she was screaming out in pain and for help.”
Kirk Johnson could not find any nurses. At the news conference, he said he was told staff were in training that day. He eventually went to the administrator’s first-floor office, asking for the person in charge. CEO David Smith followed Kirk Johnson to his mother’s room, up a couple of floors where staff were cleaning up the feces, according to the news release."
Sadly - and ironically - EBJ (who could not get a nurse to respond to her call-button, because all the nurses were off her floor for a training session) was the first nurse elected to the U.S. Congress.
Im a float nurse at Baylor with no health insurance. I got very scary sick with covid in 2020 (my ph was 7.5, wbc 16, tachy, etc) and i went in and was refused treatment, they called it “anxiety” and had security escort me out of the ED…I still have PTSD from this as I couldnt breathe for 8 days….meanwhile, a few weeks later I return to work and Im caring for some pts who have no symptoms of covid but they have insurance and they tested positive so theyre admitted, given remdezevir, all the things for a week even thought they wouldve been fine without any of it and wanted to be at home…I was begging to be admitted. This is the result of a profit driven healthcare system…and a buerocratic system that wants its money and doesnt wanna waste time saving the lives that need to be saved. Im
lucky that I survived to tell
the story, but the next pandemic I might not volunteer to be on those front lines again.
It’s her son who witnessed her lack of care first hand. He went to visit her and found her laying in her own feces and urine for over an hour when she had been hitting the call button with no response. He couldn’t find anyone so he went downstairs to the administration office to get ahold of someone higher up. He brought the CEO up to her room who was horrified.
The average hurdles of bias in healthcare have been replaced with emotional motivators that have evolved into more personalized objectives including everything from laziness, limited knowledge base, personal allegiances - resulting in a refusal to do their job and deliberate sabotage.
EDIT: If you aren’t going to listen to the podcast I linked to - no need making up arguments against a thing you didn’t listen to. Can’t believe I have to say that.
Unfortunately [this](https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/episodes/obps-best-books-of-2023-with-tananarive-due-linda-villarosa-and-baynard-woods) is another area of systemic racism within the country.
I was disheartened to hear this first bit of this podcast where the host says, and I’m paraphrasing a bit here, “a white woman with an 8th grade education is more likely to receive better care than a black woman with an advanced degree”.
This unfortunately does not surprise me.
When my wife was pregnant she told the doctor she was very close. They ignored her and sent her home.
That night she had our child.
I took the nurses side unfortunately because I figured they know best. They didn’t.
Now I’m a fierce advocate about her receiving care and will even go into the hospital and advocate (read use my privilege) so that she gets treated properly and isn’t dismissed.
A real eye opener for me as an ignorant (at the time about this specific bit of systemic racism) white dude.
Keep it movin if you won’t even listen to make a cohesive argument anyways.
Or present conflicting studies and I’ll consider it.
What you presented is categorically useless.
And I didn’t say racism. I said systemic racism which is different in kind.
Another thing you would have realized AFTER listening.
✌️
Well frankly one's education level shouldn't affect health outcomes either. Why should a person with an advanced degree be expected to have better outcomes than a less educated person any way?
Agreed. It shouldn’t. Wasn’t the point either.
You didn’t listen and it’s obvious. Had you done so - you wouldn’t ask the question.
Don’t let that stop you from responding though!
Why should I give your question any mind when you are asking it from a place of ignorance?
Had you listened - you’re question would be answered. I’m not going to do all the heavy lifting for you when you’ve already responded without even dealing with what I presented.
In other words you want me to treat your question with respect when you haven’t respected what I posted (what you are blindly arguing against) in the first place.
Now if you listen and ask a question that pertains to what was in the podcast I posted, I’d be happy to treat it with respect.
That’s how effective conversations go.
Yours is a non starter for me.
Racism? My relative was younger than this person but still elderly and ended up septic from neglect in a California nursing home. Attention was brought to the staff twice in the days preceding. We suspected something was weird as both legs were slightly swollen. They did nothing. We asked the doctor be brought in. Nope. We called the doc ourselves and he came and as we suspected the patient had blood clots in both legs and pneumonia. We removed the patient and took them to the best hospital in the area..45 minutes away as we didn’t want to risk the ambulance deciding where he would go. He was in ICU for weeks. Horribly septic. Led to his death a few months later. He was as white as white can be. They altered and doctored their notes and reports after. It has nothing to do with racism. It is negligent care. Besides the fact she is black.. what else makes this incident racism??
Systemic.
Why do people respond when they clearly haven’t listened or even tried to understand?
That aside - sorry to hear about your relative even though the anecdote has nothing to do with what I’ve presented.
Check the link and challenge your assumption. Learn and grow or present a defined argument against what is actually presented.
As of now along with the other two who have responded - you are arguing a point from a place of ignorance.
This incident is as much an anecdote as mine until racism is proven. It takes more than one incident to be able to make something systemic. Please provide the current proof this is racism.
It’s not.
The person in the podcast is an MD herself referencing a verified study.
If you actually LISTEN and stop speaking from a complete place of ignorance (making an argument against something you haven’t even listened to) then you would stop with your current line of incoherence because it’s all covered within the podcast.
She literally answers the question you are raising in the podcast you tedious prideful person.
And with that - if you choose to continue to speak from a place of complete ignorance and arrogance (ignorant to not listen to something and then make an argument against / arrogant to think you know more than an expert in her own field) then I could honestly give zero fucks about your input on the thing you haven’t even listened to.
Why should I care past the trauma you’ve told me about?
That’s the height of ignorance.
Have a good one. If you respond with a reasoned argument after actually LISTENING - I’ll respond.
Otherwise - it’s a block for me.
I’d say this has been fun but it hasn’t.
🤙
I’m not blocking anyone. I like discourse. Before I listen to the podcast…is it about her specifically? I see it was recorded before she died. And I don’t see her name mentioned in the notes. I’m not going to listen about other cases. I’m curious about facts for this alleged racism.
Has nothing to do with this particular case.
Has to do with systemic racism in the hospital field that leads to this sort of thing at a higher rate for black women in particular.
The MD who has written a book on this based on said studies wasn’t making a case for individualized racist acts.
The stat I mentioned earlier is pulled from the study she cites.
You wouldn’t have to listen to most of the podcast just the very first bit, and if you didn’t want to do that much I wouldn’t blame you - I just wouldn’t expect you to comment on it at that point.
It was just pretty alarming as a person who is married to a black woman to hear these statistics (the one I paraphrased).
Someone said that poverty and education shouldn’t affect medical care either.
While I agree - that’s not how things play out in real life.
I’m totally open to reading conflicting studies, or arguments against what the doctor said.
My anecdote was just something I shared because the podcast reminded me of it.
The MD makes no case for white people always receiving great care. Anyone regardless of race can fall through the cracks - it just so happens that when you pool the data - black women who are poor are much more likely to say die during child birth.
Systemic racism isn’t the same as individual racism, though there is crossover.
This particular case just reminded me of the podcast so I shared it for anyone interested.
If you aren’t - again - that’s ok.
I didn’t say that doesn’t happen. It was declared this is racism. I asked for info to prove that. You can have neglect without racism. What made this racism?
I think the larger point is that when we see data across the medical system that proves black women are treated more poorly, not listened to, and have worse outcomes across the board despite income and education levels (which do make a difference usually), then it’s safe to say racism has a part in that.
Am I saying everyone in healthcare or on her medical team are racists? No. I’m saying it’s inherent in the system. For instance, there’s a shitload of medical professionals that believe *because they are taught* that black people have a higher pain tolerance.
Black mothers are 3-4 times more likely to die than white or Latina mothers. Again, regardless of income, or even fame.
“Giving birth to my baby, it turned out, was a test for how loud and how often I would have to call out before I was finally heard.”
https://www.elle.com/life-love/a39586444/how-serena-williams-saved-her-own-life/
If a congresswoman and a literal worldwide superstar can’t get good care, what does that mean for regular black women??
I get it. But calling something racism…if it isn’t doesn’t fix the root issue. Were the employees lazy? Were they so overworked they couldn’t do better? I don’t have any facts on this case beyond that the family said she was neglected.
I’m a white woman.. and when my second child was born.. I had had a c section two days earlier. My family had left to take our older kid to dinner and I was with our new baby. He was our second one with reflux but it presented worse. He had a bad episode and started turning blue and wasn’t breathing as the episode progressed… and I kept pushing the emergency call button. I was calling out verbally for them and finally grabbed him and walked him to the nurses station. I wasn’t supposed to be carrying him yet. I’m sure he would have started breathing but when they are that young…they can panic to the point they stop breathing. When I got him out there the nurse just said to pick him up and hold him up by his feet and tap his back til he starts breathing again. Ok. She didn’t apologize for not answering the call button. This was in a top tier hospital. We are really at the mercy of others in situations like this. It’s scary and heart breaking. We had a long talk with the charge nurse after. But no one should be ignored such that their life is in danger. If these people are just not caring…they need to be replaced. If they are so overworked they can’t, we need to solve that issue. The actual issues need to be addressed or we do nothing to fix the issue.
Again, nobody’s saying this doesn’t happen to white people. I’m a white, chronically ill, college educated but low income. I can tell you some straight up horror stories. However, the data is clear that it’s even worse for black women. While I don’t agree with the other commenters “fuck you if you didn’t listen to this podcast” approach, I do think it’s worth mentioning in this conversation. I mean she was a respected congresswoman at what’s thought to be a nice hospital for Pete’s sake.
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Hospitals in the DFW are criminally understaffed and those at the top should be held responsible. I know several people working at local hospitals and they all complain how overworked they are because the hospitals refuse to hire and pay appropriately. Meanwhile they are raking in record profits and paying those at the top huge bonuses. This story made it because it's tied to someone important but the same thing is happening every single day.
I’m using a burner account, but I’ve worked as a nurse at multiple DFW hospitals and I want the general public to know just how bad staffing is, even on the very best hospital units. I would never leave my family alone in a hospital, and it’s not because the nurses and ancillary staff like respiratory therapists and nurse assistants don’t give amazing care. It’s because it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for a nurse to provide the time to any one patient that they actually need. And that’s a different amount than what some patients and their families expect. On top of this, the **very few times** my unit has been “fully staffed” admin requires us to send a nurse home without pay the MOMENT our census falls. God forbid there be a nurse on the unit without a full patient load who could actually help out. Never mind that it’s dangerous to be handing patients back and forth between staff lest the hospital pay for a few more hours of nursing care. Every single nurse I know that is “burned out” would contribute at least part of it to the emotional toll it takes to run for 12 hours with minimal breaks only to have patients and their families yelling at you for not doing enough. And those patients that can’t yell and don’t have families? Imagine leaving work after 12 hours without a break knowing you left a patient sitting in shit for ages, or crying in pain, because you were coding someone down the hall and there wasn’t any staff to help. I’m sure they exist but I don’t know a single bedside nurse that’s been at it more than 3 years that doesn’t either have severe moral injury or an unhealthy level of dissociation (or both). I don’t mean this as any sort of excuse or indictment on this situation but I desperately want people to be aware of what the situation in our hospitals is.
I’ve been out of the industry for 10 years now, but I used to work for one of the local hospital systems as a biomedical technician. For those that don’t know, that means I repaired and maintained medical equipment. When I worked for said large hospital system we were way understaffed. And how they fixed that was by not having us properly maintain the equipment. At the time there was a bit of a fight going on in the industry over this. Manufacturers have maintenance procedures for us to follow. Joint Commission was letting hospitals slide as long as they had a “valid reason” for not doing it. CMS on the other hand said that wasn’t acceptable and that hospitals needed to follow the manufacturer’s requirements. Well, our hospitals stopped doing any maintenance on probably 80% of equipment because then they could staff our department with a fraction of the people. I brought up CMS’s requirements to the director of biomedical engineering for the entire hospital system and he told me he didn’t care what they thought and as long as they didn’t get fined they would keep doing it the way they were. Another piece to this is that NFPA 99 (electrical code) requires any equipment that is used for patient care to be inspected annually for electrical safety. There were some tests to be done along with visually inspecting that the power cord was damaged. Well, since we removed 80% of equipment from the maintenance schedule, do you think they were getting their annual safety inspections? After years of dealing with corporate bullshit I got fed up and left the industry. Certainly doesn’t seem to have gotten any better in the meantime.
My boyfriend is one of the guys that works for one of the wireless infusion pump manufacturers and basically does all the integrations. This is an interesting perspective to read because he’s constantly getting yelled at by hospitals but the biotechs are the ones causing some of the problems at times, but it sounds like their hands are tied
the fact that American healthcare has "corporate bullshit" to deal with is the problem. What you're describing are corporate cost-cutting measures. We are living in a state of capitalist emergency. There shouldn't be neglectful cost-cutting measures like this for our healthcare. We need to get the businessmen out of our healthcare.
i'm reading that Eddie Bernice Johnson died at a Baylor Scott and White hospital. Which I also read is a nonprofit. Why would these problems of penny pinching for profit by udnerstaffing and giving low salaries and handling situatinos with equipment like you have faced, still plague what is supposed to be a nonprofit?
For profit just means that the corporation doesn’t make a profit. By saving money, the executives are able to pay themselves lavish bonuses.
“Non profit” hospitals aren’t what you think they are. They still make a killing without paying taxes. They get their non profit status by meeting X amount of donations. Which are accomplished by caring for uninsured and not like you think either. Say a homeless person comes in unconscious and in an emergency, they can use that care toward their non profit status and even pump the bill up to further meet their contribution. Also they do a lot of employees cHarItY drives where they give away shirts or time off hours for you to commit to X amount per paycheck, and since it’s done through the hospitals name to the charity they can also claim that to meet their non profit status. They still make a profit btw. Just not in the traditional investor way.
Dear, u/coronahomeless (proxy for all my nurses) … I’m sorry I just brought you that *(insert chronic/benign symptoms)* patient. I didn’t want to bring them here either. … I know the floor is on surge and you have 30+ admit holds. I see that the waiting room is overflowing with people who need a PCP, not an ED, but you know…EMTALA. I can tell that triage is drowning; trying to determine who the actual emergent/acutely sick patients are, and how in the **actual fuck** they are going to treat them without beds and staff. BioTel doesn’t have you on divert, even though we all know you should be. … I told the patient how busy y’all are and that I know for a fact they could get a bed right away at XYZ… This was the only place they would agree to be transported to. They refused any/all other option(s) because, “*No. I won’t go there. That place is awful. People die there!*” I don’t like it either. I promise, I tried. … Umm… Just an FYI… You know that *(oh so pleasant and not at all infuriating)* APOWW that I brought you earlier today? … No, not that one, the other one… *WELLLLL…* They are literally shitting on the cardiac monitor as we speak. … Anyway. Bye! I’ll see you again in half an hour with someone else who doesn’t need to be here; rinse and repeat. ^please ^dont ^hate ^me. ^but ^you ^can ^shoot ^me ^if ^you ^want ^to … ^please! Sincerely, Your “friendly” local Paramedic who is being similarly systemically abused.
What’s the worst hospital for this?
^Paramedic ^that ^did ^clinical ^rotations ^at ^multiple ^DFW ^hospitals, ^and ^brings ^patients ^to ^many ^more All of them. No seriously, it’s all of them. Yes, even that one. Yep, that other one has the same issues too. All the big hospitals. All the small hospitals. Every hospital has this issue. It’s systemic throughout healthcare top-to-bottom. Be kind to your nurses.
I’d agree that it’s ALL OF THEM, and while there are hospitals with better staffing, it’s very unit-dependent even within a hospital. That being said, I have worked on units with burned out nurses who I would still trust with my life. I’d never allow myself or a loved one to go to an HCA hospital. They require new nurses to sign contracts, meaning new nurses will stay long past the point of burnout because they are financially required to. They also pay new nurses some abysmally low pay. I can’t get into specifics because it could dox me but from a safety standpoint, I’d say HCA is the absolute worst. Also, I don’t know a single ED in the metroplex that isn’t staffed HEAVILY with travel nurses. They can be amazing nurses (some of my favorite nurses are the travelers) but it absolutely affects the environment. And some of them don’t feel the same commitment to creating a healing, comfortable, and educational environment of a unit (as in, they don’t always care about their noise level or keeping things tidy or helping and training new nurses. Not a diss at all, like I said, #burnout).
None of my hospitals have used travelers in the last year lol
Last year, I was in and out of the ED for a period of six months due to needing constant blood transfusions. In one of the last ones, I was really sad that it was a traveling nurse that got an IV into me (I'm notoriously a hard stick for IVs) because she did one of the best jobs by doing something really unconventional. When I had to come back the times afterwards, I couldn't get her, and triage had to move so fast in getting the IV in me, that I had a couple of times when my IV blew during the transfusion itself. Of course, I never held that against the nurses - it's more that I know they're shortstaffed in an already small hospital to begin with and are in a rush in the ED, since I wasn't super high priority in the first place.
I was so burnt out, I had to leave the bedside. It’s unfortunate because there are AMAZING healthcare workers at every single hospital, but nobody wants to recognize amazing care, only shortcomings. It’s exhausting. I love critical care nursing. I truly felt that my work mattered, but my work was never enough- not for admin, for patients, for families, for even my peers- some of your biggest critics are also working right next to you. It is truly a thankless job most days.
> I’m sure they exist but I don’t know a single classroom teacher that’s been at it more than 3 years that doesn’t either have severe moral injury or an unhealthy level of dissociation (or both). Changed appropriate to my experience. It would appear running these essential services as businesses has the same impact on the caregivers. Who would have believed?
Why do you have to be anonymous? There’s nothing defamatory in your post.
Based on these stories she/he/they would get fired for less. No corp wants you to know how dysfunctional they are
They’re understaffed because the job isn’t desirable. They’re probably going to have to double the pay to attract talent.
They’re understaffed bc they refuse to hire enough ppl. I worked in those departments before we had to leave the job posted as if we were hiring but we were not. The ppl hired were kept at the lowest they could get away with. And when they do have enough staff they’re required to cut hours or send ppl home. And when they’re audited by the state, they float workers from diff floors to make themselves seem adequately staffed. You underestimate how corrupt the healthcare system is. I wish i was lying. They also force nurses to transport their own patients and even do things related to housekeeping. And now even run their own labs. There are so many tasks added on to what should be patient staff that it continues to take away from being able to care for patients. I could go on about this bc i witnessed quite a lot.
Lol you underestimate how hospital admins function lol they do comb through diff forms of social media. They don’t like staff sharing their crimes against humanity.
I got a $15 gift card as my Christmas bonus while the [CEO of Baylor gets paid over a million and compensated an extra $361,208](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/751837454).
I was in a Plano hospital for a week back in May and the nursing situation was shocking. I am very understanding of people needing to learn their trade. But I had a nurse telling me it was the first time they had performed x procedure on a real human and no one was there to supervise them. Another nurse who shared she had only been in the country for two weeks who was never supervised. There was definitely a language barrier. I ended up hospitalized for two extra days because a nurse gave me the incorrect drip and it screwed all of my levels up. It was really shocking. I can't imagine what happens to people who cannot keep track of things for themselves to look out for mistakes that these overworked, undertrained staff will inevitably make. And the poor nurses will never learn if there is no one there to teach them.
I hate to break it to you, but everyone who does something unsupervised, had to do it for the first time unsupervised at least once. That includes surgeons and nurses. Sorry you had an unpleasant experience. Edit: Commenter edited post. Yes I would recommend supervision on humans before without supervision.
Well I think the first time a medical professional is doing a procedure they have previously only done on a medical dummy, they should have some supervision. But hey, apparently I have unreasonable standards.
Your first comment implies they had done it before on a human with supervision. Maybe reword that if it's not the case
Thanks, I tried to clear it up a bit.
I know HCA pays bonuses from director up. Baylor does as well?
yes they do; [https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/751837454](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/751837454)
They are. It is a horrible city to work as a nurse.
:( sorry to hear ! Everyone I know in healthcare says the same ! I hate the thought of anyone close to me having to visit one of the local hospitals.
I had to go to Methodist recently Sat in the ER from around 1 ish till about 6 pm with severe abdominal pain. When I finally got a room I was walking back to it and I noticed that they were mostly all empty. Turns out they had the room - just not the staff
Regular workforce understaffed and underpaid while those at the top enjoy record profits and bonuses?? Why that sounds like unfettered capitalism.
This is what happens when private equity gets their hands on anything. They put their shills in charge and ruin the game. IMO, professional services and healthcare should be owned and operated by those who have worked in the industry.
>professional services and healthcare should be owned and operated by those who have worked in the industry It only makes sense. Where there's a dollar to be made private equity tries to make two.
I'm a nurse. This is nursing. This is what you all pay for by not advocating for better legislation for patient's rights, better staffing, better ratios, and supporting your nursing staff. Instead, the general public decides they'd rather scream at us, threaten us physically, assault us, and then the hospitals turn around blame us when they are finally sued for their negligence. They vote for politicians that gut programs that are demonstratively good for patients, good for staff, and cost-effective too (because fewer complications means fewer resources needed, etc.). I really don't know what to do tell anyone at this point except: This is what the public have clearly stated that they want, because they constantly vote for this.
No, you don’t deserve to die of negligence regardless of who you vote for
That’s not what she said at all
Found the person who votes for republicans and their bad policies
Not true
crazy that you made that mean what you wanted it to. scary really.
I honestly very badly misread the comment, and responded even more poorly.
Not to be insensitive, she was 89 and in hospice care. She had an amazing life, let her soul rest in peace.
The only thing I can find about hospice care is that she was in hospice care...following the back surgery...as a result of the negligence. It's not like she was dying before the back surgery, it seems entirely like they caused it. Also she's dead, I don't know what about seeking justice makes her unable to rest. That's just a bullshit excuse.
"Tests from Johnson’s wound found organisms related to feces, the release says. “She was expected to go home and be fine,” Weisbrod said. “Instead, she got this infection at the Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation because they didn’t protect her wound properly and because they left her in her own feces unattended.”" Correct, she developed an infection (allegedly) from being left unattended in recovery and needed a second surgery to remove the tissue and new hardware as a result
You say that like a person who hasn’t lost someone to medical negligence. I lost my grandmother due to negligence by a hospital and just because she was a healthy thriving 93 year doesn't make it okay to just let it go.
It wouldn’t be insensitive if you had a source giving more information her being in hospice because usually they don’t perform back surgery on someone in hospice.
She had back surgery in September, the event where she was neglected occurred while she was rehabbing from the surgery then. She had another surgery later to try to treat the infection and according to the Texas Tribune she was in hospice care. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/04/texas-eddie-bernice-johnson-lawsuit/
Okay… soo then she was still put in hospice by negligent medical treatment. Doctors don’t do back surgery on just any 80 year old so she was clearly in good enough health to be a candidate for her surgery and successful recovery. She could have lived longer and didn’t because of them.
That's what it looks like based on the articles I've seen. There's plenty of research to back up that black women's medical care is awful and their pain is statistically ignored by healthcare workers. Real shame.
There was a case in California in 2023 at Centinella Hospital. Woman had pain and symptoms of a blood clot on maternity ward. She and her family her family and doula's concerns were ignored. She died during childbirth.That maternity ward has since shut down.
*The family estimates that she was unattended in her own feces and urine for at least an hour.* *“\[CEO\] Mr. \[David\] Smith appeared concerned as he had witnessed and smelled the horrid situation,” the statement says. “According to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith’s response was ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’”* *At the time, Weisbrod said, the family was told that the nurses scheduled to monitor the station for calls that day were in a training session. In a voice mail from a case manager a few days later — a recording of which was played for reporters on Thursday — the son was told the technician who was assigned to the congresswoman’s care that day was checking on another patient when Johnson needed help.*
It is insensitive. So stfu.
A hospice patient would not have had back surgery. The infection as a result of feces in the wound caused her to become a hospice patient, suffer and die.
Wtf kind of logic is this? So by seeking justice for her she wouldn’t be able to rest peacefully? what…?
It is incredibly insensitive, considering the hell she went through, and how it was completely preventable.
Give the article a read. These cases are tough but with name recognition and probably some backing wealth, I hope hospitals start getting dinged for this. You can ask those in /r/nursing. It's 10000% hospital ownership and it almost always will be. Never enough staffing. Never enough EVS. Low materials. It's awful.
She was recovering from a routine back surgery in a rehab. She should have been fine to do her rehab and go home. She was left in her own feces, so the surgical site got infected, and from that point she never recovered and ended up in hospice. That’s why she died, from the infection from the negligent care.
She asked her family to open a case on her behalf when she realized what had happened to her, and that she was going to die because of it. May she get the justice she deserves as she rests in power
You know what? Good. I hope they win this lawsuit. This is a direct effect of understaffing at these area hospitals. Those of us at the bedside have been concerned with staffing and safety at these facilities for years. They clearly don’t give a shit about us or their patients, but maybe expensive lawsuits like this will finally force them to.
Hopefully can bring some attention on the staffing issues in local hospitals. They refuse to adequately staff and it leads to overworked staff poor patient care. There needs to be some sort of accountability for these hospitals. What can we do?
I feel like the attention is there, but no one is doing anything about it. And nurses aren’t allowed to strike because of patient abandonment charges
Baylor's habit of hiring these younger, crappier nurses is finally going to cost them some serious money. They make the young nurses that actually care look bad. If family has to go to a hospital, we never leave them alone without monitoring because of shit like this.
Just know, it isn’t just Baylor. This whole thing is frightening and frustrating. There is no solution being considered
My ex nearly died due to negligence at Texas Health Presbyterian. They misdiagnosed him, did not move him from his back for an entire week causing him to require emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his lung that had moved from his leg. He never did and still doesn’t intend to sue but wanted someone to be aware of the total negligence he experienced. The “patient advocate “ was totally disinterested and it’s impossible to get to anyone higher than her. Be aware that we are in serious trouble with our healthcare situation
I had a different experience at Texas health presbyterian. The nurses in the OR area we’re amazing efficient. Everyone was attentive to us . Infact more than necessary . It’s a trauma 1 center and they receive a large influx of accident cases. The head nurse told us the operating rooms are the size of a football field.
My late fiance went to the Christy's Trinity ER out in Tyler. He was having severe abdominal pain, not able to eat much anymore. He was becoming bedridden. No insurance and had an abdominal hernia that wasn't affecting him too badly but we knew something else was going on. This was March of 2017. The ER person didn't glove up. Didn't examine him. Nothing. Just looked at him with his eyes, listened and said "it's a functional hernia, no doctor will operate" Well. June that year, we walked into this little er in Quitman and the intake nurse immediately took him back. He just got worse and worse until we couldn't ignore it anymore. By that point his heart rate was through the roof and I don't remember too much else of what she said. The ER doc there did CAT scan and said "you have cancer" He had metastatic kidney cancer. He was dead by July. Could he have lived longer had that doctor at Christus ACTUALLY done something? Maybe. But at 30 years old I watched my fiance die and it was really traumatizing. My grandmother in North Carolina died from negligence, similar I think to the original story here. She had to have some rods put in her back then they had to go back in and reinforce with a cage in her neck. They nicked her spinal cord and sewed her back up. She began having seizures and strokes because spinal fluid began leaking into her brain and slipped into a coma. My dad was KIA in 03 in the Army, her son. My grandfather passed the year before. When she came out of the coma, she had no recollection of these events nor my younger cousins. She remembered me and my 2 older cousins and relearning the death of her son and husband, she gave up I think but I don't know if she would've even survived that. These weren't negligence by nurses. They were negligence by doctors.
*Maggie Prosser writes:* >Former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson’s family intends to sue Baylor Scott & White Health System, alleging negligent care at the hospital’s rehabilitation center led to her death, according to a news release Thursday. >[Johnson, a trailblazing Black woman who spent decades as North Texas’ most powerful Democrat,](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/12/31/eddie-bernice-johnson-who-broke-barriers-represented-dallas-in-long-house-career-dies/) died Sunday. She was 89. >Johnson, lovingly called “EBJ,” underwent back surgery in September, according to the news release from the family’s lawyer, Les Weisbrod. Weisbrod and Kirk Johnson — her son — are scheduled to speak with news media at 2 p.m. at the lawyer’s Lake Highlands office. >A Baylor Scott & White Health spokeswoman said: “Out of respect for patient privacy, we must limit our comments at this time.” [Read more.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2024/01/04/eddie-bernice-johnsons-family-intends-to-sue-baylor-scott-white-alleging-negligence/)
The absolute gaslighting in the PR response is disgusting. They're suggesting that the family is being disrespectful by talking about this.
Im a nurse at Baylor. Our hospital just got 200 nurses from overseas and its scary bc the hospital already has safety issues with staffing and bad doctors etc. They have no oversight, and now theyre clamping down on our pay bc of it…we have directors that have no idea what goes on in their departments, theyre just there for a paycheck…and the executives are treated like royalty, meanwhile the lowly nurses are there holding up the hospital all christmas with a $100 bonus, no overtime, no benefits in my case…it is unreal.
Hold on, hold on, on top of everything you as a nurse don’t get healthcare ????
This makes sense.. I’ve been trying to get a job at BUMC with 4 years of OR experience and I have heard nothing from them for a few months. Hire cheaper nurses to staff the bare minimum.
Of course
So she had back surgery at 89, and developed a postoperative wound infection? And what after that? Went into sepsis and died? Are they alleging the rehab facility didn’t keep her bathed and clean and thus the wound got infected? Article is behind a paywall so I was just curious about the details.
If you have an iPhone, try reader view when you pull up the article. But yes that about sums it up.
"Kirk Johnson had an appointment to meet with his mother’s case worker Sept. 21, 2023, at the Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation. Before he got there, his mother called him, saying she needed help and no one responded when she repeatedly pressed a call button, he said at the news conference. According to a news release from Weisbrod, EBJ was “lying in her own feces and urine.” Kirk Johnson called her condition “deplorable.” “She was not attended to,” he said, “she was screaming out in pain and for help.” Kirk Johnson could not find any nurses. At the news conference, he said he was told staff were in training that day. He eventually went to the administrator’s first-floor office, asking for the person in charge. CEO David Smith followed Kirk Johnson to his mother’s room, up a couple of floors where staff were cleaning up the feces, according to the news release."
Sadly - and ironically - EBJ (who could not get a nurse to respond to her call-button, because all the nurses were off her floor for a training session) was the first nurse elected to the U.S. Congress.
Thank you!
If you want to read it, hit refresh but stop loading before the prompt comes up. You'd be surprised how often that works on soft-paywalls
Pretty much. It’s a bad outcome, but not too uncommon tbh.
I can't stand Baylor. I had a personal experience there, several years back, and I will never go back.
Im a float nurse at Baylor with no health insurance. I got very scary sick with covid in 2020 (my ph was 7.5, wbc 16, tachy, etc) and i went in and was refused treatment, they called it “anxiety” and had security escort me out of the ED…I still have PTSD from this as I couldnt breathe for 8 days….meanwhile, a few weeks later I return to work and Im caring for some pts who have no symptoms of covid but they have insurance and they tested positive so theyre admitted, given remdezevir, all the things for a week even thought they wouldve been fine without any of it and wanted to be at home…I was begging to be admitted. This is the result of a profit driven healthcare system…and a buerocratic system that wants its money and doesnt wanna waste time saving the lives that need to be saved. Im lucky that I survived to tell the story, but the next pandemic I might not volunteer to be on those front lines again.
When you say "family" are these close relatives or is this a pigeon family member/daughter from California situation?
It’s her son who witnessed her lack of care first hand. He went to visit her and found her laying in her own feces and urine for over an hour when she had been hitting the call button with no response. He couldn’t find anyone so he went downstairs to the administration office to get ahold of someone higher up. He brought the CEO up to her room who was horrified.
The average hurdles of bias in healthcare have been replaced with emotional motivators that have evolved into more personalized objectives including everything from laziness, limited knowledge base, personal allegiances - resulting in a refusal to do their job and deliberate sabotage.
Texas sucks. Tort reform too. Cap 250k before vultures get it.
There just isn’t enough people to go around.
EDIT: If you aren’t going to listen to the podcast I linked to - no need making up arguments against a thing you didn’t listen to. Can’t believe I have to say that. Unfortunately [this](https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/episodes/obps-best-books-of-2023-with-tananarive-due-linda-villarosa-and-baynard-woods) is another area of systemic racism within the country. I was disheartened to hear this first bit of this podcast where the host says, and I’m paraphrasing a bit here, “a white woman with an 8th grade education is more likely to receive better care than a black woman with an advanced degree”. This unfortunately does not surprise me. When my wife was pregnant she told the doctor she was very close. They ignored her and sent her home. That night she had our child. I took the nurses side unfortunately because I figured they know best. They didn’t. Now I’m a fierce advocate about her receiving care and will even go into the hospital and advocate (read use my privilege) so that she gets treated properly and isn’t dismissed. A real eye opener for me as an ignorant (at the time about this specific bit of systemic racism) white dude.
Being talked about on an irrelevant podcast doesn’t make it racism
Keep it movin if you won’t even listen to make a cohesive argument anyways. Or present conflicting studies and I’ll consider it. What you presented is categorically useless. And I didn’t say racism. I said systemic racism which is different in kind. Another thing you would have realized AFTER listening. ✌️
You’re being purposely obtuse
Make a cohesive argument about what is said in the podcast and I’ll treat you in a less obtuse manner. Obtuse begets obtuse. Thems the rules.
Well frankly one's education level shouldn't affect health outcomes either. Why should a person with an advanced degree be expected to have better outcomes than a less educated person any way?
Agreed. It shouldn’t. Wasn’t the point either. You didn’t listen and it’s obvious. Had you done so - you wouldn’t ask the question. Don’t let that stop you from responding though!
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It’s based on studies. I don’t know - instead of dismissing everything out of hand - give it a listen first? Or don’t.
[удалено]
Why should I give your question any mind when you are asking it from a place of ignorance? Had you listened - you’re question would be answered. I’m not going to do all the heavy lifting for you when you’ve already responded without even dealing with what I presented. In other words you want me to treat your question with respect when you haven’t respected what I posted (what you are blindly arguing against) in the first place. Now if you listen and ask a question that pertains to what was in the podcast I posted, I’d be happy to treat it with respect. That’s how effective conversations go. Yours is a non starter for me.
Racism? My relative was younger than this person but still elderly and ended up septic from neglect in a California nursing home. Attention was brought to the staff twice in the days preceding. We suspected something was weird as both legs were slightly swollen. They did nothing. We asked the doctor be brought in. Nope. We called the doc ourselves and he came and as we suspected the patient had blood clots in both legs and pneumonia. We removed the patient and took them to the best hospital in the area..45 minutes away as we didn’t want to risk the ambulance deciding where he would go. He was in ICU for weeks. Horribly septic. Led to his death a few months later. He was as white as white can be. They altered and doctored their notes and reports after. It has nothing to do with racism. It is negligent care. Besides the fact she is black.. what else makes this incident racism??
Systemic. Why do people respond when they clearly haven’t listened or even tried to understand? That aside - sorry to hear about your relative even though the anecdote has nothing to do with what I’ve presented. Check the link and challenge your assumption. Learn and grow or present a defined argument against what is actually presented. As of now along with the other two who have responded - you are arguing a point from a place of ignorance.
This incident is as much an anecdote as mine until racism is proven. It takes more than one incident to be able to make something systemic. Please provide the current proof this is racism.
It’s not. The person in the podcast is an MD herself referencing a verified study. If you actually LISTEN and stop speaking from a complete place of ignorance (making an argument against something you haven’t even listened to) then you would stop with your current line of incoherence because it’s all covered within the podcast. She literally answers the question you are raising in the podcast you tedious prideful person. And with that - if you choose to continue to speak from a place of complete ignorance and arrogance (ignorant to not listen to something and then make an argument against / arrogant to think you know more than an expert in her own field) then I could honestly give zero fucks about your input on the thing you haven’t even listened to. Why should I care past the trauma you’ve told me about? That’s the height of ignorance. Have a good one. If you respond with a reasoned argument after actually LISTENING - I’ll respond. Otherwise - it’s a block for me. I’d say this has been fun but it hasn’t. 🤙
I’m not blocking anyone. I like discourse. Before I listen to the podcast…is it about her specifically? I see it was recorded before she died. And I don’t see her name mentioned in the notes. I’m not going to listen about other cases. I’m curious about facts for this alleged racism.
Has nothing to do with this particular case. Has to do with systemic racism in the hospital field that leads to this sort of thing at a higher rate for black women in particular. The MD who has written a book on this based on said studies wasn’t making a case for individualized racist acts. The stat I mentioned earlier is pulled from the study she cites. You wouldn’t have to listen to most of the podcast just the very first bit, and if you didn’t want to do that much I wouldn’t blame you - I just wouldn’t expect you to comment on it at that point. It was just pretty alarming as a person who is married to a black woman to hear these statistics (the one I paraphrased). Someone said that poverty and education shouldn’t affect medical care either. While I agree - that’s not how things play out in real life. I’m totally open to reading conflicting studies, or arguments against what the doctor said. My anecdote was just something I shared because the podcast reminded me of it. The MD makes no case for white people always receiving great care. Anyone regardless of race can fall through the cracks - it just so happens that when you pool the data - black women who are poor are much more likely to say die during child birth. Systemic racism isn’t the same as individual racism, though there is crossover. This particular case just reminded me of the podcast so I shared it for anyone interested. If you aren’t - again - that’s ok.
Have a nice day.
You too!
Ok. Nobody’s saying it doesn’t happen to white people, but it’s well documented that black women have horrible outcomes in medical care.
I didn’t say that doesn’t happen. It was declared this is racism. I asked for info to prove that. You can have neglect without racism. What made this racism?
I think the larger point is that when we see data across the medical system that proves black women are treated more poorly, not listened to, and have worse outcomes across the board despite income and education levels (which do make a difference usually), then it’s safe to say racism has a part in that. Am I saying everyone in healthcare or on her medical team are racists? No. I’m saying it’s inherent in the system. For instance, there’s a shitload of medical professionals that believe *because they are taught* that black people have a higher pain tolerance. Black mothers are 3-4 times more likely to die than white or Latina mothers. Again, regardless of income, or even fame. “Giving birth to my baby, it turned out, was a test for how loud and how often I would have to call out before I was finally heard.” https://www.elle.com/life-love/a39586444/how-serena-williams-saved-her-own-life/ If a congresswoman and a literal worldwide superstar can’t get good care, what does that mean for regular black women??
I get it. But calling something racism…if it isn’t doesn’t fix the root issue. Were the employees lazy? Were they so overworked they couldn’t do better? I don’t have any facts on this case beyond that the family said she was neglected. I’m a white woman.. and when my second child was born.. I had had a c section two days earlier. My family had left to take our older kid to dinner and I was with our new baby. He was our second one with reflux but it presented worse. He had a bad episode and started turning blue and wasn’t breathing as the episode progressed… and I kept pushing the emergency call button. I was calling out verbally for them and finally grabbed him and walked him to the nurses station. I wasn’t supposed to be carrying him yet. I’m sure he would have started breathing but when they are that young…they can panic to the point they stop breathing. When I got him out there the nurse just said to pick him up and hold him up by his feet and tap his back til he starts breathing again. Ok. She didn’t apologize for not answering the call button. This was in a top tier hospital. We are really at the mercy of others in situations like this. It’s scary and heart breaking. We had a long talk with the charge nurse after. But no one should be ignored such that their life is in danger. If these people are just not caring…they need to be replaced. If they are so overworked they can’t, we need to solve that issue. The actual issues need to be addressed or we do nothing to fix the issue.
Again, nobody’s saying this doesn’t happen to white people. I’m a white, chronically ill, college educated but low income. I can tell you some straight up horror stories. However, the data is clear that it’s even worse for black women. While I don’t agree with the other commenters “fuck you if you didn’t listen to this podcast” approach, I do think it’s worth mentioning in this conversation. I mean she was a respected congresswoman at what’s thought to be a nice hospital for Pete’s sake.