The disaster gripping the well being care system within the US is intensifying, with unprecedented numbers of hospital closures on the horizon and new mass layoffs amongst well being care employees. Because the world enters the fourth yr of the pandemic, and the mass an infection insurance policies of the Biden administration and governments all over the world proceed to make sure the pummeling of well being programs, hospitals are additionally being flooded with youngsters and adults affected by respiratory diseases resembling respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza.
Within the US alone, by official counts 1.14 million Individuals have died from COVID-19, with 20,000 deaths occurring for the reason that begin of the brand new yr. A staggering 450 individuals are dying every day, in response to the present seven-day common. Regardless of President Biden declaring the pandemic over, these contaminated with the coronavirus are nonetheless presenting in hospitals.
The US well being care system is reaching its breaking level, exacerbated by hospital understaffing, significantly amongst nurses. When one hospital closes, the influence on a complete area is immense. The present fee of hospital closures and layoffs exposes a system organized on the idea of revenue, and which lacks any important planning to offer top quality medical care.
A current report in Becker’s Hospital Overview famous an enormous array of “workforce discount efforts or job eliminations that had been introduced inside the previous three months and/or take impact over the following month,” inside well being programs. The record contains:
- Oklahoma College (OU) Well being, a educating hospital in Oklahoma Metropolis, which is eliminating “about 100 positions as a part of an organizational redesign.”
- Integris Well being, one other Oklahoma Metropolis-based well being system, is “eliminating 200 jobs to curb bills.”
- ProMedica in Toledo, Ohio, plans to put off 262 staff, to take impact between March 10 and April 1.
- On November 11, St. Vincent Charity Medical Middle in Cleveland, Ohio, closed its emergency room and inpatient care companies, shedding practically a thousand employees.
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Middle is shedding 337 staff throughout 14 websites in New York Metropolis, or about 1.8 p.c of the most cancers heart’s 22,500 workforce.
- Pikeville Medical Middle in Kentucky laid off 112 staff on the finish 2022.
- Desert Springs Hospital Medical Middle in Las Vegas is notifying its employees of upcoming layoffs with its transition to a freestanding emergency division, which can have an effect on 970 staff.
- Kaweah Well being in Visalia, California, goals to remove 94 positions after reducing its workforce by 106.
Along with mass layoffs throughout the trade, high-level hospital closures are on the horizon with a whole lot of jobs in danger.
A staggering 631 rural hospitals are liable to closure, with greater than 200 hospitals at fast danger, in response to the Middle for Healthcare High quality and Fee Reform. Six states are dealing with the shutdown of no less than half of their rural hospitals.
In rural Alabama, 48 p.c of hospitals are liable to closing, with 16 p.c in fast hazard. City hospitals have been overwhelmed persistently all through the pandemic resulting from persistent understaffing. Frank Thomas, CEO at Residents Baptist Medical Middle in Talladega, instructed the Birmingham Enterprise Journal, “One other downside that has actually been tough via COVID and at the same time as we’re popping out of COVID is the agricultural hospitals’ capability to switch sufferers to a better stage of care in city markets … When a rural hospital will get a sick affected person who possibly wants a better stage of care that the hospital can’t present, they should switch to that increased stage of care. And it has simply been very tough for rural hospitals to switch sufferers as a result of the city hospitals are full or both they’re affected by staffing shortages.”
Whereas rural hospitals are closing at sooner charges, city hospitals should not resistant to the closures. Final November, Atlanta Medical Middle (AMC), in Atlanta, Georgia, closed, leaving tens of hundreds of sufferers disadvantaged of well being care and shedding a whole lot of staff. These occasions, which lead to a decline in obtainable well being care regardless of very excessive demand, illustrate the eroding well being care infrastructure within the US.
The influence on surrounding hospitals in Atlanta has been devastating, with the closure of AMC leaving a metropolis with half one million individuals with entry to just one stage one trauma heart, at Grady Memorial Hospital. Because the closure, there was a 20 p.c enhance in trauma sufferers at Grady, and a 40 p.c rise in obstetrics and NICU care, in response to Chief Well being Coverage Officer Ryan Loke. Simply three days after the AMC closure, the influence on surrounding hospitals was so immense that the emergency room at Wellstar Atlanta Medical Middle was compelled to shut resulting from rerouted sufferers. Extreme overcrowding was additionally reported within the emergency room at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital.
In Washington D.C. in 2019, one yr earlier than the pandemic, town council voted in favor of plans to shut United Medical Middle in January 2023. Arnel Jean-Pierre, a nurse who was working on the hospital instructed the Discuss Poverty web page, “The tip result’s lots of people are going to endure.” UMC is the final hospital in nation’s capital not situated within the northwest quadrant, town’s wealthiest part. Jean-Pierre mentioned, “They’re paying taxes identical to the parents in Georgetown, [wealthy DC neighborhood]. Why ought to they’ve the delay in well being care after they face a stroke?” Whereas UMC stays open in the interim, it’s unclear when it should shutter its doorways.
Though these developments elevated underneath the pandemic, they’re nothing new. In line with Fierce Healthcare, the nonprofit Chartis Group, well being consultants in Boston, “discovered that over the previous 13 years, 143 amenities have closed and one other 453 are weak to shutting their doorways.”
These mass layoffs and closures couldn’t come at a worse time, with probably lethal lengthy wait occasions at ERs throughout North America. Well being Companies Analysis journal examined 5 million discharge data from California between October 2015 and the top of 2017 and located a 5.4 p.c enhance within the probability of demise from any trigger when a hospital’s emergency room is overcrowded.
These circumstances are linked to the nationwide nursing scarcity, with a report from McKinsey & Firm final yr predicting a shortfall of as much as 450,000 registered nurses within the US by 2025.
Whereas well being programs within the US and Europe battle with closures and layoffs, governments are pouring billions of {dollars} into the NATO proxy warfare in Ukraine. This previous week within the UK, tens of hundreds of nurses, EMTs and first responders struck towards assaults on the Nationwide Well being Service (NHS) and for protected staffing.
Within the US, the assault on well being care employees’ circumstances and affected person care takes place as for-profit and “non-profit” hospitals alike proceed to rake in astronomical income and pay their CEOs exorbitant salaries. The transformational change needed requires that well being care employees unite internationally to place an finish to the for-profit supply of well being as a part of the broader battle for socialism.
Are you a well being care employee? Fill out the shape under to explain circumstances at your hospital or well being care facility. We are going to shield your identification.