Hospitals Do Not Care About Nurses and Why Nurses Don´t Quit

I read this quote the other day, and it hit home.

There’s not a shortage of nurses; there’s a shortage of nurses who aren’t willing to put up with the bullshit any longer.

As of 2023, a survey conducted that 43% of nurses are qualified for retirement, most plan to retire in the next four-ish years, and only 13 % of these nurses plan to retire on time.

However, that is not what concerns me; what I want to know is why nurses like me who are not at retirement age quit. First, I want to talk about the elephant in the room.

Manipulative hospital administration and management.

Most nurses will work burned out, tired, overworked, underpaid, and with horrible staffing ratios because we care about the patient.

However, we nurses are the only ones who care about the patient; the only thing upper management cares about is the bottom line, the money, how much they make, and how much each sick person brings in.

We are in the business of sickness, not healing; if the hospitals cared about anyone, they would change their healthcare model. Instead, management manipulates the only ones who care for the nurses, Rn/Lpn, the caregivers, and even the housekeeping staff.

Why Nurses don't quit

Most nurses have not quit because they are worried about the patient.

I used to be as well, so it took me so long to leave a broken system. A system that manipulated us as caregivers to stay in toxic environments. The only good thing that happened during the pandemic is nurses are waking up and seeing they are pawns in a manipulative, narcissistic game the healthcare system is playing.

According to an article by USA Today, ¨the nation’s long-running nursing shortage only got worse during the pandemic¨ I think what happened is that nurses started to stand their ground.

So, nurses are not realizing this and are finding other jobs.

I truly believe there has never been a nursing shortage; the only problem is that we see the system is broken and leave the field altogether.

We refuse to be bullied and tell our patients to need us; when they get high patient satisfaction scores, they get a bonus; we do not; when they meet magnet status, they get bonuses; we do not.

Like anything, the bottom of the barrel is always the care team. We are manipulated into thinking we can not do anything else and get told how the pay doesn’t matter when you touch someone, fuck that seriously.

If drug companies would stop promoting drugs that are killing us and food that is killing us, maybe then we have a chance. At this point, we are fighting an uphill battle, one that we will not win unless we fight back.

And we are; it might have taken a global pandemic to see that we are being abused; it’s like a relationship that has gone just too far, now we see.

The patients also see; they know.

I used to tell my patients to have a list of questions for their doctors and would help them write it and ask them every question, making them see you as human.

It did work when the doctor paid attention, but unfortunately, they too are in the game of making money, and as much as we like to think they want the best for the patients, their pockets are filled with kickbacks from health ins companies, pharma companies, and it’s a shit show.

It’s almost like you have been married to an abusive spouse, and then something significant happened; he beat you to the point of nearly dying.

You wake up; unfortunately, that is how much it takes for most nurses to realize they are being abused by a system that was supposed to protect them, their license, and, most importantly, the patient.

Younger nurses are realizing this sooner than most of us who have been in the profession a while, and it will take all of us talking about it and bringing awareness to a much greater problem: a broken healthcare system that is finally starting to crumble.

We nurses now have a much bigger job: to let the public know what is happening and why we are leaving, as well as how important it is to take care of our bodies and make healthy choices.

Since the system can not be relied on and search out alternative medications to prescriptions as that is the number one poison, we see the opioid crisis not slowing down.

That, too, was started by big pharma; once you start waking up, you will begin to connect all the dots.

You, the nurse, are not letting the patient down; the system we have in place is you are just no longer allowing yourself to be manipulated and abused.

If they keep us tired, sick, and burned out, we are easier to control.

XOXO

S

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