The Hospital Blues

Since when do hospitals call and ask for money? That shiny beacon of health in Winston on Hawthorne Hill as they call it is now soliciting. The audacity! Calling former patients for donations because your care was so stellar.  Do they call families of the unfortunate souls who did make it out of the hospital? What is next, calling former employees? The same employees the stiffed for numerous years to hit the bottom line? That place deserves the sour name it has now gotten in the NC triad. I asked a guy at church a few weeks ago what his job at the beacon was, he honestly looked frightened. Like I was gonna gun him down or hit him in the Sunday school hallway. Health care is failing in America. This place is an example of how, tens upon tens of VP's getting fat checks and bonuses. Paying millions to bring in a new CEO, just to bring him in from Texas. His salary is added to that hush hush bonus. The allied health workers lived in fear for 2 years while all this transpired. X-ray techs got canned, nurses hours got cut, nurses got canned or reassigned, respiratory therapists got canned and had schedules/hours "trimmed". Fancy focus groups formed to lead us into a new golden age. Plus no raises for 3 cycles! Pay freezes and hiring freezes are not the new golden age. Yes the depression was at full force during this time period but as stated above the VP's did not seem to mind. I forgot to mention doctors were purged. The best ones, the ones with demands and great ideas, fired. Some without even being told, he had to read his job ad online. I left to find a place I'd be appreciated and paid for my input and ideas. Surprisingly just a few miles away this problem did not exist. I was shown just how poorly that hospital was run. I do not miss that place, I do not regret leaving, I do feel sorry for my friends employed there. I do hope one day they call and ask me for money or a review of their services/reputation. Any medical center that goes from having 10 specialties in the top 25 in The US world news hospital report to having 2 in the top 50  within a year is in deep trouble.

Hospitals are today's factories. In the days of our grandparents a HS diploma would get a job at a local factory making something for a honest wage, a livable wage. Today a HS diploma gets you a PT job at Sheetz for minimum wage and you may have to drive 25 miles round trip to get there at $3.75 a gallon. Money gone! For 3 years at a community college anyone with a C average can become some form of healthcare worker. Now yes it is harder than that to get in most programs, but if you look hard enough you will become something. Most jobs at a hospital start out at near $17 an hour in this state. Most can just be a warm body at said job, do the minimum, don't screw up and get that honest wage. To me this is wrong. Just another example of how America is broken. Working at any allied health job should be a privilege not just a pay check. How do we fix the American work force? I do not know but I know that a job at a hospital should not be the only job in town that pays you well(unless you work in Winston Salem at the trauma center). 

This may or may not make any sense to anyone, I just had to spill it all out. I have been pondering this for awhile and needed to say it. If you get it, good. If you don't, then its just the ramblings of a disabled former healthcare worker.

This song should sum up the American dream