For those of you who read me on a regular basis, you might have noticed I’ve been absent since the last week of April (otherwise known as winter in Michigan).
I have been in the hospital, recovering after surgery.
What I found happening in the hospital was truly scary. And it’s a direct result of Biden and the democrat party’s war on our very lives.
I’ve been writing about this for a while about how the democrats don’t seem to care about our lives. I’ve pointed out how their policies have created crime, illegal immigration chaos and the Fentanyl crisis.
We all know that their vaccine mandates and war on fossil fuel and our economy has led to shortages of everything including people like police, fire and hospital staff.
It’s one thing to write about it.
It’s a totally different thing to live it.
Due to a complication, I had to have a different kind of surgery than first expected. And due to another complication in recovery, I was in the hospital for longer than expected.
So overall, I was in the hospital for a week.
In the beginning, you expect that having a nurse (and an aide) means that you will get services in a timely manner – whether it’s a big thing like getting medicine, a changed IV bag or a walk to the bathroom – or the little things (big to me) like ice packs, ice chips, a popsicle (a lifeline for someone who hasn’t eaten in a week) or a warm blanket.
And even though the nurses and aides on my floor did the best they could, they just don’t have time to do their jobs.
They are short-staffed. Every day.
Nights and weekends are even worse.
They can’t give patients the care that we really need.
And don’t even get me started on the lax housekeeping I saw and how many deaths can result from that.
When I consulted Dr. Google, I see that short-staffing at hospitals is still a problem [1] everywhere.
This issue was not only largely created by democrats but it’s also currently ignored by them as well. It’s obviously not a problem that any of them have on their radar but it’s a danger to all of us.
I was lucky in the beginning of my stay in the hospital to have my hubby there to advocate for me and keep things on track to get me better.
The last few days, I did a lot stuff for myself – as much as possible to recover faster and to leave the nurse and aide available to patients who needed them more than me. I also learned that being nice to them instead of demanding would get you much farther with your requests. I even made “friends” with a few of them talking about our pets and our jobs. Since I was there a week, I had several of the nurses and aides more than once.
It would be nice if caregivers (family) or a volunteer could do the menial tasks to free up the time of the nurses and the aides. Things like getting ice, blankets, turning off the constant beeping of machines etc. But with Covid, that isn’t allowed. The hospitals are still in freak-out mode over Covid and they also have to operate under the rules of the government or lose their funding.
I did some research and the nurses on my floor took care of six patients – all recovering from some kind of surgery.
Plus there was supposed to be about one aide for every 20 patients. I figured that out one night when an aide had quit and my aide told my roommate exhaustingly after she was berated for taking so long that she was taking care of 40 people.
I talked to a few nurses about the short-staffing. The reasons are plentiful. Vaccine mandates, burnout from overtime, child care costs, baby boomers retiring early during the pandemic, not affording the gas to drive to work if they don’t live in town…
Vaccine mandates.
The hospital I was in required everyone to be vaccinated by January of this year. Staff, volunteers, providers, contract workers and students.
Covid still rules everything.
Let me tell you… at no time when I was in pain or needed ice packs or toilet paper or my medicine, did I give one crap if any of the nurses or aides were vaccinated.