wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

-I was on the air during the show.
I understand completely the anger towards nurses in the ER from a patient's perspective. Some situations in there are plainly unacceptable.
But the nurses are overworked, overwelmed and are actually voicing more and more that they "had it". They can't treat 100 patients a day and fear for their lives. their work condition are amasingly horrible.
As the co-director of the Active non-violence Group, I can't change the health system but I can contribute by providing trainings for the staff's safety and understanding of stress dynamics/ self control in order to maintain the quanlity of work needed from them.
We provide trainings of different length and nature.
www.activenonviolence.com
1(888)990 ANVG

While in the emergency room with my mother, we watched a woman having an asthma attack being told she was not a priority because she was a walk-in. She explained that she lived nearby and felt the attack coming on when she reached home. Rather than walk up to her fifth-floor apartment, call 911, and wait while in the midst of the attack, she chose to walk around the corner to the hospital. She was still told no priority.

I DONT THINK RACE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE WAY THE PATIENT WAS TREATED, IT HAS TO DO WITH THE CULTURE OF THE HOSPITAL LAZY PEOPLE THAT DONT CARE ABOUT SEEING SOMEONE LYING FACE DOWN ON A FLOOR. HOW CAN YOU IGNORE THAT, AS MR MOGUL SAID MOST OF THE STAFF IS AFRICAN AMERICAN

Please don't think that it's just this King's County Hospital. I spent 16 hours in the emergency room at what was, at the time, the best rated hospital in New York City (St. Vincent's). While I was there, without enough beds, they made me sit on a chair next to the nurses station, where I heard things I wish I hadn't. I heard patients crying in pain for help and the nurses just stood around complaining and making fun of the patients. One patient was wheeled in on a stretcher vomiting blood, and one nurse called the patients whiney babies, saying, "when my stomach hurts, I just take the day off of work". In the end, although I was in so much pain I couldn't walk, my 4th doctor of the visit sent me away, yelling at me, "of the 3 hours I've been here, you've wasted exactly 45 minutes of my time!", and called a security guard to force me to leave the hospital.

What about the economics of the people working there--I have to think it doesn't pay very well and they don't get the cream of the crop in terms of employees. Is that fair?

marcus
not only those serving don't care about them but society in general doesn't care

Let me point out the obvious. Poor Black people get poor service because those serving them do not consider them worthy of decent care.

I agree completly with Robert. In addition you cannot show ANY medical knowledge, even though it is knowledge of how your own body works; they - aides, nurses, even some doctors - become insulted. My mother,a haemotologist, could not get respect being treated in the hopspital where she worked for 33 years. Treatment depends on neighbourhood.

Surprised! Really, have you been in a hospital lately? I wouldn't hire those people to run a maximum security prison for fear of prisoner abuse. I've never seen the kind of indifference to humanity and disrespect toward sick people that hospital workers display and have been displaying for years now. They "graduate" from these two week to two month "technical colleges" that have popped up on every street corner with government monies. My last experience the "nurses aide" made over 10 attempts to find a vein in my wrist to place an IV. I had as many bleeding wholes in the area and she just thought it was funny!!! Need I tell you how painful it was?