Top headline: New York Times, 12/15/2022
Bottom headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 12/16/2022
NYT excerpt:
Since the start of the pandemic, nurses have been leaving hospitals in droves. The exodus stems from many factors, with the hospital industry blaming Covid, staff burnout and tight labor markets for acute shortages of staff.
But a New York Times investigation has found that hospitals helped lay the groundwork for the labor crisis long before the arrival of the coronavirus. Looking to bolster their bottom lines, hospitals sought to wring more work out of fewer employees. When the pandemic swamped hospitals with critically ill patients, their lean staffing went from a financial strength to a glaring weakness.
More than half of the roughly 5,000 hospitals in the United States are nonprofits. In exchange for avoiding taxes, the Internal Revenue Service requires them to offer services, such as free health care for low-income patients, that help their communities.
But The Times this year has documented how large chains of nonprofit hospitals have moved away from their charitable missions.
Those 2 mergers. They're not doing it for us.
Related post:
Hospital administrators toss Hippocratic Oath out the window in chase for profits. (10/13/2022)
