Coronavirus: Why so many US nurses are out of work

BBC News ^ | April 29, 2020 | By Aleem Maqbool

[Oldeconomybuyer]

At a time when medical professionals are putting their lives at risk, tens of thousands of doctors in the United States are taking large pay cuts.

And even as some parts of the US are talking of desperate shortages in nursing staff, elsewhere in the country many nurses are being told to stay at home without pay.

That is because American healthcare companies are looking to cut costs as they struggle to generate revenue during the coronavirus crisis.

"Nurses are being called heroes," Mariya Buxton says, clearly upset. "But I just really don't feel like a hero right now because I'm not doing my part."

Ms Buxton is a paediatric nurse in St Paul, Minnesota, but has been asked to stay at home.

At the unit at which Ms Buxton worked, and at hospitals across most of the country, medical procedures that are not deemed to be urgent have been stopped. That has meant a massive loss of income.

While she has, until now, retained health insurance benefits through the company she worked for, Ms Buxton is not being paid her salary while she is off work.

"People would always say to me, being a nurse you'll never have to worry about having a job. And here I am, newly 40 years old and unemployed for the first time since I started working," she says.

Although she is supportive of the measures taken to curb the spread of the virus, Ms Buxton worries that the longer hospitals cannot perform regular medical procedures, the more nurses that will find themselves in the same position as her.

[American Infidel]

Remember during the temporary government shutdown, when the media and the left in general were apoplectic about government workers not being paid, and how they were going to "starve"?

Fast forward to today when millions of private sector employees are out of work, impacting a much larger percentage of the country and and anyone who expresses any concern for the livelihoods of those out of work are being "selfish" and "putting people at risk".

The government workers (including congress) are not missing a paycheck despite not working. Most of the rest of us don't have that luxury. Where is the equivalent outrage by the media?

We can survive quite well as a nation with most of the government being shut down, but we most assuredly cannot survive with most of the private sector being shut down. It's time to get back to work. We are advanced enough to figure out a way to protect the vulnerable without driving our nation into a 2nd great depression.

[867V309]

We’ve been playgued.

I like that

mine is Ivy Plague Schools --before the chinee woohan hoax

[Diogenesis]

we must continue with Napoleon Fauxi’s plan of
DEATH FOR AMERICA.
must.
obey.
must avoid the curative medication.
must allow THEIR vaccination.

OBEY Fauxi.

[stinkerpot65]

Because Democrats.

[Cboldt]

-- The unanswered question is whether it was created by stupidity, ill intent or both. --

Ill intent never lets a crisis go to waste.

[Daffynition]

Show up. Do your job.

That works for me.