Thread: Improved Immigration System Could Help Nurse Shortage

And when some of the nurses or aids call my dept I can hardly understand what they are saying. Sometimes I have to a coworker to listen to what is being said and then my coworker and I try to fiqure out what the nurse or aids wants. I've told the person at the other end of the phone that I can not understand them and please get someone on the phone that I can understand. BTW, they get mad when I say that.

Originally Posted by butterbean

Get rid of the illegals and there wouldn't be a shortage. Also, nursing colleges and universities should be recruiting young men and women in our high schools, not in foreign countries. Americans should be able to get an education in nursing before allowing foreign students one.

I completely agree! I'm a RN at a large trauma center and we generally have about a 25% population that can not speak English! We have to put up with the demanding and confrontational attitudes, not just with the illegals, but with the welfare-types of our patient population. It begins to get to the nurses after a while. Then, when you try to set restrictions on whatever, the visiting hours, amount of visitors allowed (we're are caring for the patient after all), they become angry at us and threaten to have us fired or have their lawyer sue us, or worse - for, my words - taking care of their 'loved ones.'

The USA is in a world of hurt because of the so-called welfare system and it's not only the illegals that know how to extort the system. And when the American nurses get out of direct patient care due to the above reasons, our Government allows foreigners to replace us instead of fixing the problem. I just hope that I can understand the nurse that's taking care of me when I reach that age or illness. I hope they're not speaking spanish.............

Originally Posted by RuralCountryVeteran

I completely agree! I'm a RN at a large trauma center and we generally have about a 25% population that can not speak English! We have to put up with the demanding and confrontational attitudes, not just with the illegals, but with the welfare-types of our patient population. It begins to get to the nurses after a while. Then, when you try to set restrictions on whatever, the visiting hours, amount of visitors allowed (we're are caring for the patient after all), they become angry at us and threaten to have us fired or have their lawyer sue us, or worse - for, my words - taking care of their 'loved ones.'

Did you ever hit the nail on the head!!! One of my pet peeves! They think visiting hours don't apply to them. 15-30 people visiting at a time, kids running up and down the halls, coming in at all hours of the night and thinking they have the right to do so! One family sometimes takes up an entire lobby....infringing on other patient's visitors having a place to sit. And they think they have the right to do that. No consideration for the fact that there are other patients and families there. And then when they have the nerve to tell me I need to learn spanish! Watch that blood pressure!!! Then you chase around to get an interpreter for a patient only to hear them speaking fine english on the phone as you pass the room a couple of hours later! That's a regular ploy, acting like they don't speak or understand english when they do! What a waste of time and resources in a business whose priority is trying to save lives.

Ok, I am a family nurse practitioner, been in nursing since 94. What is going on is there is no shortage. This is similiar to how they say there are no workers to pick the fields without immigrants. Well there will be workers if you pay enough for an American to live in American standards, (meaning a home with only one family in it). The same thing has been going on with hospitals for a long time. If they can get immigrant nurses to work for minimum wage and live 5 or so in a 1 bedroom apt. the hospital makes more money.

There was an article on AOL just a few days ago addressing this issue. Basically the hospital nursing wage since 1999 has only risen 1.9% while inflation has gone up like 30%. (My facts are not exact but you get the idea). There are 2 million nurses either not working as nurses or in the private sector which pays.

Another problem is American nurses have always demanded better work conditions and tried to form unions. You do that and your out of a job overnight. The working conditions are 8-10 patients, on multiple medications, needing multiple procedures done (IV's started, specimens collected, respiratory treatments, etc). Well how the hell can ONE nurse juggle all that and give quality care? We can't. So you get burned out so fast or god forbid you harm a patient and you get sued. The hospital won't stand by you. Your out of your license and a job. Under those circumstances what reasonable educated person would take a job like that?

The private sector pays 30-60% more than hospitals. When gas is $4 a gallon you can see the easy choice here.

About foreign nurses. They don't get the same training. They speak broken english at best. They regularly give wrong meds, steal meds to send home, don't give a crap about the patient and are just collecting a paycheck to send back to their homeland. In nursing homes I've seen hatian nurses sleeping while patients called out in agonizing pain in the middle of the night. They can't give the pain med because they are hoarding it to send home! They steal people's belonging's, let them sit in feces for hours or days, physically abuse them...

They also import foreign doctors, some of whom are at the educational level of an RN in our country, yet allowed to be doctors here.

This is why no one wants to go to the hospital! I better stop here...don't get me started on the illegal immigrants contributing to this problem....

In nursing homes I've seen hatian nurses sleeping while patients called out in agonizing pain in the middle of the night. They can't give the pain med because they are hoarding it to send home! They steal people's belonging's, let them sit in feces for hours or days, physically abuse them...

MY MOTHER WAS RECENTLY IN A NURSING HOME. WE HAD TO HIRE AN AID TO ATTEND TO HER BECAUSE THE ATTENDANTS THERE HAD SO MANY PATIENTS THAT THEY WOULD HARDLY EVER LOOK IN ON MY MOM. SHE WAS DYING SO WE FELT SHE NEEDED TO BE ATTENDED TO MORE THOROUGHLY. WE ACTUALLY HAD TO HIRE SOMEONE TO COME IN TO SUPPLEMENT THE LACK OF CARE AT THE NURSING HOME. IF THEY PAID THEM A DECENT WAGE AND HIRED ENOUGH OF THEM, THEY WOULD GET AMERICANS TO TAKE THE JOB.

Getting rid of the 20 million illegal aliens in this country would probably go a long way in lightening the load.

About foreign nurses. They don't get the same training. They speak broken english at best. They regularly give wrong meds, steal meds to send home, don't give a crap about the patient and are just collecting a paycheck to send back to their homeland. In nursing homes I've seen hatian nurses sleeping while patients called out in agonizing pain in the middle of the night. They can't give the pain med because they are hoarding it to send home! They steal people's belonging's, let them sit in feces for hours or days, physically abuse them...

Perfectly stated!
I was recently in the hospital for 2 months so I witnessed the foreign nurses first hand. A bunch of them were from Camaroon. How they got here and why, I'll never know. They were lazy and kept pawning off their chores on each other. And I know that on several nights I was supposed to get Vicodin, they would tell me I already got it, when I never did.

The hispanic nurses could barely speak English. And talk about discrimination! I had a roommate who was hispanic who IMO was an illegal because she couldn't speak any English. She kept yelling "Nita" and 3-4 hispanic nurses would come running into her room and pamper her. Whenever I buzzed for the nurse, I had to wait about 10 minutes before anyone would come.

And the nurses aides! I've seen them come to work with their kids! They would put the kids in an empty room and let them play and take naps in the beds! It was like an illegal day-care center set up in a hospital.

Originally Posted by bchapp

Another problem is American nurses have always demanded better work conditions and tried to form unions. You do that and you're out of a job overnight. The working conditions are 8-10 patients, on multiple medications, needing multiple procedures done (IV's started, specimens collected, respiratory treatments, etc.).

Where, bchapp, is the patient:nurse ratio 8 or 10 to 1? Last I heard, it was still 6 to 1 in SC.

Phlebotomists and Resp Techs do those collections and procedures when they are available, at a lower cost than an RN. Except on days, there may be only one RN on the unit, and she spends most of her time signing off on pt orders and documenting pt care.

But compared to you, bchapp, I'm out of the loop. 6 to 1 may indeed be a thing of the past, but I sure hope not. 10 to 1 sounds like an invitation to pt abuse and drugging up pts to keep them quiet.

If you are a patient, you need a family member to attend to you and monitor your patient care.