Last night I read a post on a blog that's dedicated to health care that angered me for more than one reason. It was so seemingly vitriolic that someone who commented before me asked if the post was an April Fool's joke; the guy responded it wasn't.

The first part concerned nurses, and his opinion that they are over paid, mainly because of unions, and that even though he knew they worked a lot, that he was of the opinion they didn't deserve to get that high a rate of pay for it.

The second part concerned his solution, and what he said while expressing his solution. That was to bring in nurses from other countries, such as India and Puerto Rico, flood the American market so there wasn't a nursing shortage anymore, and basically crush the unions. However, and this isn't a direct quote, while he was talking about some of the worst work nurses do, that being cleaning up after patients where is concerned feces and other stuff, he said "American nurses are too good for that work."

Now, who could read that statement and not see the racism in it? At the very least it's xenophobic, but it comes across as bigoted anyway. As for his words about nurses, all I can say is that without nurses doctors would never get anything done, patients wouldn't get any real hands on care, and there goes both hospitals and physician's offices. Many nurses in this country work 16 hour shifts, not 8 or 12, and sometimes they might have to tag more hours on after that. In some states, there's a heavy emphasis on having registered nurses rather than LPN's because registered nurses are allowed to do so many more things, and of course that means more education and more time.

I'm not a union man, and have never been one, but I understand the concept and reason behind most of them. If there ever was a group that needed a union protecting them, this would be it. True, sometimes you will see nurses sitting around, but that's usually because they're either tired from all the running around, or, by law, they have to be in an area for whatever reason. If a hospital has a cardiac rehabilitation unit, for instance, during open hours a nurse has to be there, even if there are no patients. Not their fault if they happen to watch a lot of TV or read a lot if no one is around; those are the rules.

I decided not to dignify this particular blog by giving it a link to this blog, but you can tell I was, and still am, disgusted, by what this person wrote. There needs to be solutions to some of the health care problems, but if we're going to pile on those who are doing good work, and bring out the racist side of things at the same time, I'd rather not hear about it. What about you?