Why is Rhode Island's Health Care Staffing So Inadequate Right Now?

Data suggests that Rhode Island should actually be faring much better than most states this pandemic season:

• The population in the state of Rhode Island is the second MOST vaccinated in the United States.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists Rhode Island as having the third HIGHEST concentration of Registered Nurses per one thousand jobs.

Yet, Rhode Island is one of only five states that has required FEMA assistance to supplement health care staffing for the 2021-2022 COVID pandemic season. Governor McKee has also announced that the National Guard will be deployed into Rhode Island's hospitals.

How is it possible that the second most vaccinated state, with the third highest concentration of Registered Nurses per capita, has such a dire shortage of nurses that Gov. McKee has signed This Executive Order to increase the patient capacity of hospitals in Rhode Island and also LOWER liabilities for violations of standards of care as a result of that increased capacity?

Why does Rhode Island need federal personnel to staff its' hospitals, when there are eight nursing schools in this 1200 square mile state, while other states with far lower vaccination rates and fewer nurses can sustain themselves?

Corporate Profits from COVID

Lifespan Corporation has a monopoly on inpatient health care services in the state of Rhode Island. In 2021, they announced a Merge with Care New England-- Which had prior been the state's second largest health care network. Inside sources reveal Lifespan transplanted their human resource personnel to oversee Care New England facilities ahead of the official merge.

All major inpatient facilities in the state are now effectively under Lifespan's label, including, interestingly, all the facilities which will be receiving FEMA personnel.

Lifespan publicly announced their profit from the 2020-2021 COVID pandemic season, finishing the 2021 fiscal year With a $186 Million Increase in Patient-Service Revenue from the year prior due to federal COVID-relief aid, as well as an overall net profit for the first year since 2018.

Interestingly, In 2019, Lifespan laid off nurses and other healthcare personnel after finishing the year in a $35 million deficit, but as we will see they were not rehired.

The 2021-2022 COVID pandemic promises to also be profitable for Lifespan, thanks to another round of federal relief they have managed to acquire at the expense of the welfare of the state's citizens and their own labor force.

Intentional Neglect

Why didn't Lifespan Corporation use their more-than-ample relief funds to hire back the nurses they had laid off in 2019? Why was there no success on hiring and retention of health care workers during the COVID downtime that existed from Spring until late Fall?

A look at Glassdoor Reviews from current and former nursing staff reveals multiple reports that Lifespan increased punitivity towards their employees, who had been working under stress since 2020. There are even accounts from staff members who were marked as "Do Not Rehire" from all of Lifespan's facilities-- For no objective reason.

Lifespan used their monopoly status in Rhode Island to effectively shut out local nurses from providing inpatient health care in any of the hospitals displaying the largest need. Why would a corporation ever maneuver such an appalling tactic? The answer is nothing short of sinister-- So that they could continue to Report Their Dire Staffing Shortages to the federal government in order to qualify for more federal relief funds. Simultaneously, Governor McKee passed executive orders to lower Lifespan's standards for health care delivery as well as their risk of liability. Why would a governor ever pass an executive action that benefits a corporation's bottom line, at the expense of the welfare of the population for which he was elected to serve as Governor? The answer lies in Rhode Island politician's longtime legacy of corruption and greased pockets.

But what about Labor Unions?!

Lifespan's largest facilities operate in conjunction with the bargaining agreements they have with the UNAP labor union. However, the elected president of UNAP was not representing the labor force, who had been leaving the workforce's unmanagable conditions in droves , when he publicly announced that he would Support Unsafe Staffing Ratios because, "The hospital had no choice". There was no fight from him at all as he announced that care standards for patients, and working conditions for nurses, would drop to even lower standards. He essentially shrugged his shoulders and said, 'You're on your own.'

You find out who your true friends are when you need help the most. UNAP left their workers to drown.

So, sick patients-- you need to deal with whatever health care you get, and if some error is made by an exhausted health care worker which causes a fatality or serious injury then it will be chalked up to a casualty of the crisis, and the governor's executive order will support that in court.

Also, labor force-- You will bear an even more unmanageable workload which we all know is impossible for any single individual to handle even when they are at their best, nevermind when they are working strings of odd hours and long shifts, around a deadly virus that is infecting them.

P.S. If you happen to catch COVID while working unmanageable assignments on those long shifts, You Can Still Go To Work in Rhode Island. The fact that UNAP did not immediately speak out against that insanity is evidence that they are no longer protecting their workers rights, at the very time when workers need unions to fight for them most.

Patients in Rhode Island hospitals continue to suffer needlessly with substandard levels of care due to unmanageable and unsafe staffing ratios, which is directly linked to poorer patient outcomes, for the financial prosperity of Lifespan Corporation-- the state's monopolistic, and expanding healthcare network.

Corporate Warfare

Motives for knowingly placing corporate profit over a population's literal healthcare quality are exceedingly malevolent, and mark a turning point in our late-stage capitalist society: We are now at a point where even health care corporations that are supposed to save lives and provide humane care, will let their own patients suffer for a payout, then blame nurses. There are no corporate ethics left here.

We, the collective, must define ethical boundaries for them, and speak out against corporations that serve themselves at the expense of their consumers health and safety.

Health care systems serve the needs of the individuals, not the other way around.

At this point in history, we need to stay keenly aware of the injustices that corporations like Lifespan are inflicting by way of neglect on our most vulnerable. They cannot be trusted. We can trace where profit is going and see that it comes at the expense of our most vulnerable. We can see that health care staffing has been intentionally allowed to drop far lower than it ever should have been in a first world country, just so that the federal government would send aide. We live in far too civilized a society to tolerate this injustice for ourselves, or for our future generations.

~~~~Updates will be coming to this website over time as events develop, so stay tuned! If you have not yet viewed the HeroDAO, please click the tab in the upper right corner of this webpage to learn how this organizational governance structure could revolutionize the way corporations function. Stay strong. ~~~~

© 01/14/2022, Mike Jones, www.healthcarezeros.com