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[ChairmanPoo]

My take:

- the real problem is that HCWs have been fucked worldwide, as a result of policies that might seem only national but are actually a consequence of managers and politicians copying each other.

- core to those policies has been a drive to run healthcare companies as tech companies, either by privatizing them outright, or by getting managers with that cultural mindset (the latter is specially true of the UK and Ireland). As a consequence of this they usually start to "streamline" processes, remove 'redundant' hcw posts to cut costs (which dont actually come down cause number of managers keeps growing)

- on a more global level, very often you hear politicians talk about solving hcw shortages by increasing training posts. Two big problems with this: first (at best) the results will take years to be seen. Second: a more fundamental problem is that healthcare professions (probably technical professions in general) have become very unattractive (and the longer the less attractive) because there's little substantial payoff for the effort.

- restricting hcw movement (either foreigners or the often touted solution by populist pundits of forcing your own to do mandatory service) makes it even less attractive, pretty much ignores how healthcare systems work (you *do* want people moving around)

- just paying more money is not an immediate solution but its a start. Back home you often hear doctors in labor protests say "its not about the money". They are honest FWIW but they are also wrong: they might want respect and better working conditions rather than more money, but they won't get either of the former without the latter. The reason is because low wages has created the illusion in management that specialist physicians are as replaceable as Fast Food clerks (this illusion has not helped management to do a good job either)

[ChairmanPoo]

Also: as a followup to one of the bits above: healthcare cannot be streamlined for the same reason fire departments cant be streamlined: you need redundancy to deal with emerging situations. And yes, this does mean that at any given point you should have X number of nurses, doctors, lab scientists... doing continued medical education, discussing stuff with colleagues, or just standing around, for the same reason you keep firemen on the payroll even if they are not actively putting out fires at any given time: you need them available if something does happen

[Starver]

Indeed, empty beds (etc) aren't a failure of planning, but a necessity of it. Too much reliance on average use-rates fails to understand the need to deal with surges, and when someone officious considers the dips in use a 'waste of resources'...

Very rarely do we seem to have non-negative free beds publically reported, for some very obvious reasons, but there's almost always evidence of the buffers being hit or even grossly over-run.

[EuchreJack]

I'm reminded of the Ventilator crisis at the beginning of COVID.

The real concern is how one keeps a politician/manager from balancing their budget and making themselves look good by cutting such "needless expenses" in the future.
It mostly comes down to Restricted Funds. Tell them they can't touch that part of the budget without greater oversight. That usually has them shrug their shoulders and Not Bother.

[ChairmanPoo]

The ventilator crisis was an even bigger  farce. Every country scrambling for ventilators (and driving the prices through the roof) when the real bottleneck was ICU staff.

Btw when I mentioned the UK and Ireland have been hit particularily hard by these "optimizers"... one number that comes to mind is how  low the number of icu beds per capita is in both countries compared to the European median

[EuchreJack]

The ventilator crisis was an even bigger  farce. Every country scrambling for ventilators (and driving the prices through the roof) when the real bottleneck was ICU staff.

Btw when I mentioned the UK and Ireland have been hit particularily hard by these "optimizers"... one number that comes to mind is how  low the number of icu beds per capita is in both countries compared to the European median

There's no profit in driving up the price of ICU staff...

[dragdeler]

Not only was it the wrong thread but now I'm subscribed too -.-

[Loud Whispers]

Besides the "yucky" factor, any reason not to buy a meta quest 2? The price doesn't make sense it's like mark is acting like a total zuckerdaddy because he wants his metaverse so bad...

Has anybody a concrete TECHNICAL reason not to get one?

I'd be scared of any facebook datamining, intrusive ads, and in addition I need a reason to buy something rather than reasons not to buy something

Also: as a followup to one of the bits above: healthcare cannot be streamlined for the same reason fire departments cant be streamlined: you need redundancy to deal with emerging situations. And yes, this does mean that at any given point you should have X number of nurses, doctors, lab scientists... doing continued medical education, discussing stuff with colleagues, or just standing around, for the same reason you keep firemen on the payroll even if they are not actively putting out fires at any given time: you need them available if something does happen

I remember when the 7/7 bombings happened and some of my fam and friends were called to standby in case their medical skills were needed. In the end there were so many of them on standby that not all were called upon in the end, as they had met all their staffing needs. Meanwhile manchest stadium bombing and loads of people died because they didn't even have enough people to do triage

Also agree with all your points. Sickened me to my stomach sitting through finance meetings where all the healthcare workers are treated as low productivity low skilled workers because low paid = low skill low productivity. Like you absolute numbnuts have you not learned anything from Covid essential workers saga? No? They never learn. Self-serving ouroboros of "you are trash because I treat you like trash and payments will decrease until morale has improved" followed by "wait why is everyone leaving?"
I shit you not of all the ground level staff who actually keep everything alive, 100% of them are from West African, Afro-Caribbean or ASEAN backgrounds. Of the management and directors 80% are white British or 20% Indian. Three of the Philipino staff and the one Romanian have already quit because of how low the pay is. One of them joined for 5 months and left because it was just that awful. That's why I think it's ridiculous that the Tory and Labour party are arguing over staff training or immigration when neither addresses the fact that working in healthcare is not viable for anyone

[Starver]

Not only was it the wrong thread but now I'm subscribed too -.-

... one of us... one of us...

[notquitethere]

I wish there was a way to unsubscribe from threads. There are those eternal threads with 10,000-100,000 replies I posted in on a whim like 5 years ago and have clogged up my New Replies screen ever since.


On the topic of UK politics: it's appalling how the BBC just totally repeat whatever framing the Conservative party have, about immigration etc. Having been in power for over a decade, the Tories can't blame the last government for whatever mistake, so they've invented this 'fiscal blackhole' for people to worry about and talked a lot about stopping Albanians from coming on small boats... instead of addressing the actual needs of people (like housing, cost of living etc.).

[hector13]

Apparently that fiscal black hole can disappear by doing something like changing the way you process the data, rather than EVERYONE PAY MORE TAXES AND CUT CUT CUT THE SPENDING.

[Ziusudra]

I wish there was a way to unsubscribe from threads. There are those eternal threads with 10,000-100,000 replies I posted in on a whim like 5 years ago and have clogged up my New Replies screen ever since.

Check out the notifications page on your profile.

[notquitethere]

I wish there was a way to unsubscribe from threads. There are those eternal threads with 10,000-100,000 replies I posted in on a whim like 5 years ago and have clogged up my New Replies screen ever since.

Check out the notifications page on your profile.

I don't use notifications at all (should I?)— I just click Show New Replies To Your Posts.

[EuchreJack]

I wish there was a way to unsubscribe from threads. There are those eternal threads with 10,000-100,000 replies I posted in on a whim like 5 years ago and have clogged up my New Replies screen ever since.

Check out the notifications page on your profile.

I don't use notifications at all (should I?)— I just click Show New Replies To Your Posts.

You have to post in Robot Mode in order to unsubscribe.

[Starver]

(Rishi's gone to visit Volodymyr... maybe he's needing to distract from bad news dogging him at home, just like Boris? Ok, so Liz never went there (I think), but then she didn't do much of that sort of thing at all - even with fellow UK leaderships.)