Tristin Kate Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her “abuser” five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.

  • Sekrayray@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    96
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    As someone who works in healthcare, I’m not sure how the system is still standing at all. And most of all no one cares about the ER—especially other specialties. It’s life draining.

    • Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      53
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Just had a call with member services at my insurance asking how I can get weekly therapy because 2-5 weeks in between that they’ve been giving me is absolutely ineffective. They replied that their therapy is stretched so thin. It’s awful.

      They (hospital bosses or whatever controls the cost-cutting stuff) are hurting everyone. Patients can’t get quality or timely care. Healthcare workers have to help so many traumatic cases alongside the boo-boos. But the workers are expected to treat it like a regular job and just come in like it’s normal.

      A patient dies because of a tired surgeon’s mistake. The surgeon might lose everything. The big-wigs take no responsibility for their staffing cuts to the surgery department.

    • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      47
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I dare say that anyone working in healthcare knows a coworker who’s committed suicide because of the job. I know I do and it still haunts me even though I managed to get out.

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        44
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        2 suicides, 5 COVID deaths, 2 of car accidents from sleep deprivation after getting off. Not to mention the miles long list of those suffering from mental illness, burn out, drug abuse, severe stress, and injuries from work

        • boeman@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          It pains me to read that you went through this. I really hope you can find something that keeps you happy so you can make it through the losses.

      • Sekrayray@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        31
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yep. I think we all do. The state of modern society is making nearly every essential job unworkable. My wife quit teaching a few years back, and I almost feel like her profession had become more malignant than medicine.

      • BOMBS@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Luckily, I don’t know of anyone for certain, though I know of some medical providers that openly shared their suicidality. It was A LOT of providers, way more than most would expect. They looked like defeated remnants of previously joyful people with aspirations and hope. Many of them said that they continued to work just to pay off their loans and help their kids avoid the situation they were in.

        When I quit, I left the medical system entirely. For unrelated matters, I happen to learn a lot about the patterns that abusers use on their victims, and I saw a lot of overlap with that and how the medical system I worked in treated the employees, especially the use of fear, obligation, and guilt (ie FOG). I’m convinced that healthcare managers/administrators are soulless robots without empathy that find positions of power in medical settings because they can manipulate the system, especially the providers’ innate desire to care for patients and the patients’ desperate medical situation and lack of knowledge. It really is troubling.