A nurse's healthcare manifesto

September 2, 11:51 PMHealth Care ExaminerChristine Whitmarsh

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“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”
–Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC)

In an attempt to fill the void of empty web space, this entry will break from my WebMD style blogs with a good old-fashioned point of view.

And now, presenting…

A Healthcare Manifesto
By
One of several health care examiners here on Examiner.com

*“Healthcare” should focus almost solely on paying for the care of one’s health. This would mean, naturally, applying healthcare insurance premiums towards activities and resources that protect the insured’s good health rather than solely treating bad health. In other words – I would like my monthly premium to include things like a health club membership, certain amount of hours with a personal trainer, private yoga sessions and a healthy food delivery service. For the amount of the average monthly premium, this seems fair, right?

*Eastern medicine seems better at preventing and treating illness while western medicine seems to specialize in diagnosing illness. This is like security guards who watch the bad stuff happen on the monitors but aren’t terribly good at stopping it. With the amount of illness rampant over here, I think it’s time we evened the score.

*As a retired RN, I can say this with a clear conscience: Nurses (this includes all nursing staff) are gods and goddesses and too often either treated like modified waitresses (something I’ve also done for a living) or worse. There is a lot of knowledge, caring and skill walking around in those scrubs. The best and even the worst doctors I worked with completely understood this. Some patients and family members… not so much. This is understandable since this group is under considerable stress. Although please, family members, keep in mind the incredible workload nurses are dealing with while you’re chasing them down the hall threatening legal action if they don’t get to your dad’s pain meds in the next 30 seconds. That’s just not cool and certainly isn’t going to lighten their workload and get your dad his meds any faster.

*Insurance companies should not get to decide how many nurses work on which floor for which shift based on the diagnoses and acuity levels of the patients currently admitted to the floor. Healthcare folks – please feel free to let me know if this policy has changed since 1997. The insurance company stooges are already deciding whether or not claims should be paid (usually not). They shouldn’t be in charge of patient care – which is exactly what they’re doing by deciding that 2 nurses should care for 10 patients a piece without a nurse’s aide. Unless the insurance reps decide to pull on some rubber gloves and start helping patients on to bed pans… I really don’t want to hear from them about patient care.

(feel free to discuss amongst yourselves now)