News, Bad Economy Causes Two Queens, NY Hospitals To Close Doors, Lay Off 2,500 Employees. (health insurance, licenses)

[John1960]

New York, NY (AHN) - Two hospitals in Queens have closed their doors throwing 2,500 people out of work.

St. John's Hospital in Elmhurst and its sister facility, Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, stopped accepting patients on Saturday. A skeleton staff remained on duty to care for the remaining patients until they could be transferred to other hospitals.

Bad Economy Causes Two Queens, NY Hospitals To Close Doors, Lay Off 2,500 Employees | AHN | March 2, 2009

[harry chickpea]

Interesting-
"Some of the laid off nurses from the two hospitals are reportedly worried about finding new jobs. Although health-care was once thought recession proof, the growing number of Americans who have lost their health insurance means that people are foregoing medical elective care and often can't pay for emergency care."

It looks like the economy could increase the pressure on a lot of emergency rooms to the breaking point. Not good.

[rubber_factory]

This is bad news.

My brother is a surgical resident, and his estimation was that "85% of my surgical patients do not even intend to pay for their services." So the hospital must eat millions in costs for high-tech equipment and malpractice insurance for people who feel "entitled" to the service, but have no intention of paying.

You have to wonder how long we can continue with such a dysfunctional system. At this point I don't care if we adopt a free-market healthcare system or go full-scale nationalization, something needs to be changed.

[SSWM]

It is indeed bad news.
Everyone knew it was coming. It'll hit the hospitals that are teetering on the edge first. Those in areas of high free care. More and more people not able or willing to pay.
Of course the hospitals must treat them for acute care in order to save their lives. Nothing is depression proof.

[CalGal953]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

Interesting-
"Some of the laid off nurses from the two hospitals are reportedly worried about finding new jobs. Although health-care was once thought recession proof, the growing number of Americans who have lost their health insurance means that people are foregoing medical elective care and often can't pay for emergency care."

And yet almost everybody tells me that there are still plenty of jobs in that field, and when I provide evidence to the contrary, they put their fingers in their ears and go "la-la-la-la-la I can't hear you". And in another thread I asked a couple of posters, who gave me "proof" that the field was still hiring--especially in Texas where I live, could help me find work in the field since my employment specialist couldn't, I hadn't heard from them since. I guess they don't want their bubbles burst.

[iluvcj]

I am a former pre-nursing major, and in my classes that was one of the main reasons people wanted to be nurses. They thought that they would be guaranteed a job. When I told everybody that I was going to be a nurse, they would reply "oh you are always going to have a job". Tell that to the 3 new grads that graduated last year and have their RN licenses and cannot find a job. The media still pushes that nursing is recession proof when in reality nurses are having hard time getting work. A few of the hospitals in my area have even suspended their new grad programs and didnt renew the contracts with traveling nurses.

[Ultrarunner]

The facility were I work has cut back because on staff because the census has fallen.

Fewer people have insurance and many without insurance put off medical expenses.

Most Hospitals will work with cash patients and many will give price breaks and payment plans. It doesn't help if the money isn't there.

Remember there was constant news of a nationwide nursing shortage and large numbers of nurses were set to retire. None of our older nurses set to retire went ahead... citing disastrous 401k plans as the main reason. Most at my facility were down 50 to 55%.

I still think nursing is a good field... it may take a little longer to land that dream job... even though the hospitals have hiring freezes... they still hire for specialty positions and the convalescent homes are always hiring at less money.

Don't forget the military option. Uncle Sam is still actively recruiting nurses and nurses start out at officer level.

Right now, Nurses are having to deal with a dose of reality like the rest of us.