Editor’s note: This commentary is by Daniel Curtain, of South Burlington, who has worked as a nurse at the UVM Medical Center for the past 11 years.
[M]y beloved and I went to dinner recently to a place that has been a favorite of ours. That “favorite” designation was mostly based on how one particular person treated us when we arrived, how she tended to our needs, and how she made certain we were happy with the experience. Of course, the food is usually good and the place is pleasant.
On this night, we said we wanted to sit outdoors. The young woman told us to go on out and pick a table, and she would follow “right away.” Once seated, we waited a little too long to qualify as “right away,” but she did arrive with napkins, glasses and menus. She sloppily distributed these items and without speaking, turned and walked away. I called out, “May I give you a drink order?” She responded by telling me my server would be right out and that that person would take my order.
Long ago as a young restaurant worker I figured out for myself that good, organized and hardworking people were the one ingredient absolutely necessary for a restaurant to be a success. Now, more than 50 years later, I recognize my observation as a truism of life, no matter the endeavor. The restaurant worker who had told us to seat ourselves had only to take seven steps back to our table, receive an order for a cocktail and be gone in less than two minutes. She had offended me by telling me by her actions that she was either too important — or I was not important enough — to have my drink order taken. My beloved and I agreed. We left.
People are everything in a business. They’ll make a business a success or failure. They’ll win repeat customers for life or they’ll scar potential customers so that they never return.
Hospitals are a business. It may be true that many more factors come into play when a person decides whether to return to a particular hospital, or not, but in the end, they too are a business. The backbone of any good hospital is good people: a nurse who listens, a polite orderly, a concerned physician. People notice when they are treated as individuals. People notice when someone cares what they have to say. Hospitals should be more than Medicare reimbursement dollars. Hospitals should be more than words painted on a wall proclaiming how important the patient is. Hospitals are places for care and healing and concern.
Of course there is a business side to hospitals. No one lives in a vacuum. Hospitals have operating budgets just like our favorite restaurants. Equipment, services and payrolls must be procured and provided. There are leaks in the roof, emergencies arise, lawsuits happen. There are, indeed, expenses. However, there is one common denominator to all of it. People. If there are good people handling the leaky roof, the disgruntled surgical patient, the broken ultrasound machine, the dilemma most likely will be solved, a catastrophe is averted.
Doctors and nurses are the visible backbone of any hospital. They are the ones charged with the care of the patient. The support people who come into contact with the patient are, in truth, unrecognized nurses as well. In a hospital nursing is what is done. A person’s title explains a role, but it hardly says everything a person does within the hospital walls. Doctors nurse. Nurse’s aides nurse. The cafeteria person nurses! Nursing is what the sick patient expects, and is in the hospital to receive. To diminish the role of nursing is to tear down the very reason the hospital as a institution exists.
At the University of Vermont Medical Center, nursing is being compromised. Employees are just that: employees. They are not respected as an integral part of the nursing model. Buried deep in this hospital’s tradition is the fact that nursing has always been “women’s work.” It is undervalued and not quite as important as men’s work. A nurse’s pay is a financial burden, not a value received. I see that perception continue today. Generally,health care is concerned with the health of society. Should it not be concerned with the injustices of a society as a factor in the community’s health? Should it care when IV drug use becomes a pandemic, when the number of homeless persons increase, or when crime rates climb? A hospital should be a bastion of reason, hope and understanding. As I look at University of Vermont’s medical center’s CEO and COO, I fail to see individuals who are truly concerned with the society they find themselves in. They are takers, not givers. They consume while most of us at the medical center give. They take. We nurse.
It is this kind of thinking that says to me just how plain stupid our hospital management team’s thinking is being. I’m not talking about whether their management skills are being called into question as, in my judgement, they should be. I’m saying that in a transparent world of internet and public disclosure, to be willing to pay a vulgar amount to a few, while at the same time resist paying those who perform the daily tasks, is simply stupid, out of step and selfish. There is no other way to accurately interpret it. They are ruining the medical center. The community is being short-changed.
