Highland Hospital Follies by Ann Nomura, P.T.
Hard times make us question why we choose to work at Highland Hospital. Its not the food, the posh digs, or the administrative or political support. We get a new CEO every year who brings in new consultants. The consultants then blame those of us trying to care for patients for the millions of dollars in deficits.
I confess, we did it. We have given away crutches, chemotherapy medicines, home phone numbers and even our spare change when everything else wasn't enough. Its most definitely the caregivers' fault that Highland isn't making money hand over fist. We dont deny care or ration life-saving treatments efficiently enough.
Politicians fume that we should be making money by taking care of people who got dumped from their health insurance plans for being too sick. The Board of Supervisors happily pays to imprison people; to prosecute them (however ineptly); to ticket them, and to inspect them. However, they feel that paying to take care of the critically ill should turn a profit. And hence they have their budget enemies - chemotherapy nurses (giving away expensive medicines); respiratory therapists (who intubate elderly people, who could be left to die and save the county thousands); trauma surgeons (doing expensive procedures on patients before they have verified a payer source.)
Yes, friends and co-workers, we are the problem. We work at Highland because we want to take care of people. We share values: we went into healthcare to take care of our community not to profit from it.
Having spent time in seven Bay Area hospitals I can honestly say the nurses and technicians at Highland Hospital are the kindest, most compassionate caregivers, hands down. They're all over- worked, and no doubt underpaid, yet they sincerely care about each patient's well-being, from the homeless to the under or uninsured.
They're never stingy with sympathetic smiles, encouraging words or a hand to hold during a frightening moment. I've asked they why they work there, knowing they could find higher paying jobs with the quality of service they provide. They inevitably laugh and say they work there for the people they encounter. Bless them for that!
You'll have to look somewhere else to blame for the lack of profit. The nursing staff's desire to give back to the community is priceless.
47 stiches: $1,247
30 tabs vicodin: $87
Driving yourself to the ER with four gunshot wounds: Priceless
I am a Highland employee, once again the useless unions have failed us. We have to learn to swim in this pool of politics or we will drown. The unions only throw us a lifesaver when they want to raise dues. I suggest the unions dive first into the waters and we members can float on their bodies.
Highland employees have always organized to save healthcare services, the unions have never helped. It is time for healthcare unions ( SEIU Local 250, 535 and 616) to do their job and save Highland Hospital.
Sincerely,
Darla
SEIU 616 ( the no hope union)
Dear Oaklandnews,
I find it hard to believe that our local politicians are closing healthcare services in the middle of a flu epidemic. Aren't most of the isolation rooms in Alameda county at Highland Hospital? Aren't county hospitals where we first recognize and try to contain new epidemics? Don't we already have an AIDS, TB and hepatitis C epidemic?
I hope someone has a plan.
M. Fisher
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