Healthcare Worker Guest Author

Hey my name is Loren. I am a 20-year-old healthcare worker and a former nursing student. For the past two years I have been a certified nursing assistant at Community Memorial Hospital (Winona Health) in Winona, MN.

Like one of the previous guest writers, I also was unaware that, as a whole, healthcare has a low number of incoming providers. I am however aware of the shortage of nurses. This was the main reason I chose nursing as my major. I was continually hearing on the news that there is a nursing shortage, after one semester in the Winona State Nursing Program, I understand why. The amount of stress and coursework demanded of nursing students is ridiculous. For example Anatomy and Physiology is the most stressful class imaginable. I personally failed it three times. Not due to lack of effort, but due to the endless little details we had to memorize. I still do not understand why as a nurse I would need to know the name every bone or every chemical reaction in the body. That class alone caused half of the freshman nursing students to change their majors. I feel like more would have stuck around had the class been more directed at nursing student, but the problem is that the class was for Pre-Med, Sports/Physical Therapy, and Nursing student. As a general studies course it will not be specialized for nursing students. Personally I would like to see all general studies courses removed from our college programs all together. College boards are more worried about having “well rounded” American Citizens then in having those citizens specialists in their careers. Here is where I would normally go off on how education in general needs to be revised, but as that is not the point of this blog, I will refrain myself.

Next I would like to discus my views on Universal Healthcare. I am 100% for it! There is no reason for ANY American Citizen to be refused care because they are uninsured. And if they are not refused, they get slammed with ridiculously high healthcare bills. At the hospital we have patients that we call “frequent fliers”. Some of them actually come in because they need care, but a lot of them come in simply because they are lonely. And doctors continue to admit them! These patients all have Medicare, and can stay for up to ten days paying very little out of pocket. This really bothers me for two reasons. The first, I have to deal with them, and they are often very crabby or meticulous. Secondly, I have been lucky enough to find a job that pays well and offers benefits, such as health insurance. However so many people in this country a unemployed at the moment, and unable to get health insurance. Why should one of these people be bombarded to healthcare bills, when Medicare is pouring money into entertaining these elderly?

If this country decides that Universal Healthcare is to socialistic (sarcasm much intended), I firmly believe we need to have a new law that gives healthcare to anyone enrolled in a college or university. These people are already dishing thousands of dollars into their education; they cannot afford to be uninsured. So many students work while in college, but most can’t work full time in a job that gives them health insurance. An uninsured student, who is most likely already in debt due to student loans, would be even more in debt with a trip to the emergency room. I know that this concept may be confusing to many students who may be reading this because they are insured under their parents’ plans, but not all of us have that comfort. I have two people in mind when I say that. One of my close friends is uninsured because her father lost his job, thus losing all coverage for is family. Another friend of mine is not on speaking terms with his family, and they refuse to keep him on their plan.

Thank you for allowing me to speak my mind. I DEMAND change, and I pray that Obama’s Healthcare reform passes.

Health Care Worker Guest Author

I have been a health care worker for the last 14 years at a major medical center. In the last few years it has been harder and harder to fill job vacancies. With this in mind changes must be made to attract students into the field. Education in allied health careers at a younger age and training incentives are all good ideas. Getting people excited about the field at an early age is key. If we don't attract young people to these careers it affects our access and quality of health care. This is an important field and being involved in it should be more attractive to students. Being short staffed also affects my coworkers and I at our job. Responsibilities and duties are piled on to a smaller amount of people, making work more taxing and our efficiency lower. Specific reforms to lower school costs and have the government aid in schooling make these majors much more attractive. When I was in school 15 years ago, I had aid for school and aid to help with day care, as I already had 2 kids before I decided to pursue my career in laboratory medicine. Without this, I wouldn't be a part of the health care workforce.

Joan Wagner

Student Guest Post

I was asked by a friend to contribute to this blog and say how I feel about health care reform/my experiences with health care. I am a junior here at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, studying Spanish Education. Especially this semester, I have had extensive dealings with health care, since I was hospitalized four times. To make quite a long story pretty short I had a liver transplant my freshman year of high school due to an autoimmune disease known as Primary Schrelosing Cholangitis. My transplant saved my life, and I’m extremely grateful to be living today because I really shouldn’t be. Throughout my journey in the quest of good health my insurance company has been pretty fantastic, I’m one of the lucky ones in this country in that I have wonderful health insurance under my father and have received the best care because of it. Well, the health insurance company was wonderful until last January when I was told by my team of doctors that I would need another liver transplant, I am one of the extremely rare cases where Primary Schrelosing Cholangitis comes back post-transplant. The moment when my family and I found this out was a very emotional one, but we persisted, knowing that another transplant would greatly extended the length of my life and also greatly improve my quality of life. When we received word that I needed a second transplant, my father called my case worker, an amazing woman who deals with the majority of my care as far as insurance is concerned, and he was told that in the contract that we had my second liver transplant would not be covered by our current plan. I’m sure you can imagine how much worse that made the situation. My family and I immediately started working on an appeal letter. The way the appeal process was explained to us was that we would write a letter to company, and it was suggested that we receive letters speaking toward my character as a person (to show that I would be a productive member of society if I receive the organ) and from my doctors/care givers to speak about how well I took care of myself. After the appeal letter was sent, we would wait and see if our case would be heard by the company, and if it was a court room like proceeding where a panel of people connected (management, employees, etc) to the insurance company would decide my fate. It did not get to this point, but these people would have been deciding whether I live or die had it gotten there. My second transplant was denied, for no reason given other than “it’s not in the contract”, for no fault of my own – doctors have reassured me that there is nothing I did that caused my PSC to return. Luckily, a number of people on the inside of the insurance company saw my case and created an internal appeal that went through, so as of now my second transplant will be covered.
I would like to see the health care system in the United States change. I wish that everybody in the nation would receive high quality health care, like that of my first liver transplant. I feel this way because it just makes sense to me to want everybody to be healthy, and I see government as being a large protection of its people. Universal health care would help to keep the nation healthy, and I see that as a government protecting its people. My parents raised me to care about my fellow person, to treat my neighbor as I would like to be treated and I see both of these values being encompassed in universal health care.
While reading through the major tenants of the recently passed health care bill in the House of Representatives it seems that a lot of them are just making insurance companies into decent companies. Now, children can’t be denied because of pre-existing conditions. The fact that our government had to step in and say that children cannot be denied health care makes me sick. How in the world could anybody tell an ailing child that they cannot get care to get better because they were born with what causes them pain? The same goes for people at any age, how would anybody be able to tell them that they can’t get care because they have a disease that they did nothing to receive? The donut hole in Medicare was made smaller, and now seniors will not have to pay as much for prescriptions. This makes sense to me, once again it seems to be a government caring for its people.

Student Guest Author

I think this is a very interesting point to the health care debate, and this reform offers a unique solution to the problem. Before reading these proposals, I was not aware of the lack of health care providers. Now knowing this problem, I feel that a reform is needed. This proposal offers a good way to help out people interested in going into the health care profession. By teaching students at secondary schools about health care professions, they could be more interested and dedicated to the job. By giving them a taste of a future career, it could inspire students to work harder in school. I think it is also important for the government to better fund geriatric care training, since this is incredibly important to our country’s health care system. I think a governmental program to help pay off student loans for people in the healthcare profession would be very helpful. As a student that was considering a career in medicine, the amount of money needed to pay for medical school definitely weighed into my decision. If there had been some way to get some of my schooling paid for, I may have considered this path more. Even if this raised tax dollars, I think that it would a good investment for our nations future. Most people trust and see the value in having a good doctor, so I think that raising taxes to support doctors would be widely supported. In order to improve our system, some money will need to be spent, and I think that making school less expensive for doctors is good expenditure. If there are more healthcare workers, it will be easier for people to get care. I think this is extremely valuable to our system. If we can make students want to join the healthcare field early on, we will have more doctors that can provide better care.