Are these really the people that should be required to work so much? Isn’t their job about handling life and death daily? Wouldn’t we want exactly these people to come fully rested to work every single day and be fully staffed?
I don’t know if there are jobs with similar stakes that are so carelessly staffed and disgustingly paid.
Who’s we? I’m certainly not okay with it
Yea, “we” the people are not okay with it. “We” the profit driven corporate vampires are okay with it because “profits”.
This is actually an interesting question.
They experimented with “office hours” for doctors and patients were dying more than double/triple shift.
This because the information lost during handoff was more valuable than doctors being more tired (and by consequence doing more mistakes).
This is a textbook example of the risks of lost context
I’d like to see those numbers. I’m not finding clear numbers on shift-length mortality. This meta review (Systematic Review of the Impact of Physician Work Schedules on Patient Safety with Meta-Analyses of Mortality Risk, 2023, DOI: 10.1016/j.jcjq.2023.06.014 ) says
Limiting all resident physicians to 80-hour work weeks and 28-hour shifts in 2003 was associated with an 11% reduction in mortality (p < 0.001). Limited shift durations and shorter work weeks were also associated with improved patient safety in clinical trials and observational studies not specifically tied to policy changes.
I think we can all agree that a 28 hour shift is fucking insane and that anybody doing such a long shift will not be of sound capacity.
And if hand-offs are killing more people than work hours, then that just means that the hand-off procedures are terrible. I’d want to see what kind of hand-offs are being compared and if hand-off methods have different patient events.
I fully agree with this as far as why they do extended shifts of 12 hours or more. But, OP did say double and triple shifts so they might not be just referencing the longer shifts. In that case it is corporate greed.
I mean, did they increase staff numbers proportionally to hour reduction or did they just have people go home? Because if it’s the latter, then duh.
I’ve also heard that and it makes sense, but if it’s a statistic already at this point, can’t it serve as a way to improve information storing and handover? I have nothing in common with the medical industry, this is just an outside observation.
Momentum is hard to overcome and it’s been done this way for many many years
The guy who is largely attributed to making the medical residency system so punishingly difficult in terms of hours was coke addict btw. William Stewart Halsted. That was like 1890 and residents didn’t have their hours limited until 2003 (and even then, barely)
Yeah, I saw that they were “limited” to 80 fucking hours a week (in the US). Quite the limit.
A lot of people have alluded to this already, but I’ll simplify.
“We” are not OK with it. “We” are not the ones making the decisions
Hospitals and such are fine with it because they’re a business now and not as much involved in the health of the public beyond making sure they can still pay them.
We’re not. But, just like AI, executives with the ideology of rapists don’t care about our consent.
Who would’ve thought that running every industry and business like mini dictatorships would backfire? Thanks capitalism!
More like the ideology of slave masters, which includes rapists plus oh so much more.
‘How does capitalism keep the unemployed on hand?’ you ask.
Simply by compelling you to work long hours and as hard as possible, so as to produce the greatest amount. All the modern schemes of ‘efficiency’, the Taylor and other systems of ‘economy’ and ‘rationalization’ serve only to squeeze greater profits out of the worker. It is economy in the interest of the employer only. But as concerns you, the worker, this ‘economy’ spells the greatest expenditure of your effort and energy, a fatal waste of your vitality.
It pays the employer to use up and exploit your strength and ability at the highest tension. True, it ruins your health and breaks down your nervous system, makes you a prey to illness and disease (there are even special proletarian diseases), cripples you and brings you to an early grave — but what does your boss care? Are there not thousands of unemployed waiting for your job and ready to take it the moment you are disabled or dead?
That is why it is to the profit of the capitalist to keep an army of unemployed ready at hand. It is part and parcel of the wage system, a necessary and inevitable characteristic of it.
It is in the interest of the people that there should be no unemployed, that all should have an opportunity to work and earn their living; that all should help, each according to his ability and strength, to increase the wealth of the country, so that each should be able to have a greater share of it.
But capitalism is not interested in the welfare of the people. Capitalism, as I have shown before, is interested only in profits. By employing less people and working them long hours larger profits can be made than by giving work to more people at shorter hours. That is why it is to the interest of your employer, for instance, to have 100 people work 10 hours daily rather than to employ 200 at 5 hours. He would need more room for 200 than for 100 persons — a larger factory, more tools and machinery, and so on. That is, he would require a greater investment of capital. The employment of a larger force at less hours would bring less profits, and that is why your boss will not run his factory or shop on such a plan. Which means that a system of profit-making is not compatible with considerations of humanity and the well-being of the workers. On the contrary, the harder and more ‘efficiently’ you work and the longer hours you stay at it, the better for your employer and the greater his profits.
You can therefore see that capitalism is not interested in employing all those who want and are able to work. On the contrary: a minimum of ‘hands’ and a maximum of effort is the principle and the profit of the capitalist system. This is the whole secret of all ‘rationalization’ schemes. And that is why you will find thousands of people in every capitalist country willing and anxious to work, yet unable to get employment. This army of unemployed is a constant threat to your standard of living. They are ready to take your place at lower pay, because necessity compels them to it. That is, of course, very advantageous to the boss: it is a whip in his hands constantly held over you, so you will slave hard for him and ‘behave’ yourself.
from Now and After by Alexander Berkman, Chapter 5: Unemployment. Available to read for free here.
Even in countries where healthcare is socialised, they are run “efficiently” like a capitalist business by administrators who care not for healthcare but for finances, “balancing the books”, and bean counting.
Wait until they find out about pilots
Or public transport operators
this is bad
this is just as bad
I think we agree
You know what’s funny? I actually think the situation is a lot better than you’re making it out to be.
You’re not entirely wrong. There absolutely are positions in hospitals where people do insane schedules like 24 or 48 hour shifts. But that’s mostly concentrated around emergency medicine, trauma, surgical residency, ICU coverage, and certain on-call specialties. There’s definitely a culture surrounding ER staff and surgeons where sleep deprivation almost gets treated like some badge of honor.
But the majority of the medical world in America does not operate like that.
Most hospitals primarily run on normal shift structures. Nurses on regular floors and patient wings are usually working standard 8 or 12 hour rotations with multiple shift changes throughout the day just like any other industry. And once you get into private practice, some doctors are only in office a few days a week seeing a relatively small number of patients across different locations.
People also forget hospitals are not run exclusively by doctors and nurses. They’re massive operations with huge amounts of support staff, technicians, imaging departments, transport, administration, custodial staff, billing, labs, and so on, most of whom work completely normal schedules.
So yes, what you’re describing does exist. But I don’t think it’s remotely as universal or apocalyptic as people make it sound. A lot of public perception comes from dramatized media where every hospital is portrayed like a nonstop trauma center operating at DEFCON 1 twenty-four hours a day.
Of course not. People take naps when it dies down in open rooms.
Iirc, here in the UK it’s illegal to ask a doctor or nurse to work s triple shift. I think it should be for doubles as well, excepting major emergencies which involve a sudden influx of patients
A double shift is 24 hours. Medical shifts are 12 hours.
Yikes. Might be needed in some surgeries though
Neurosurgery can be 14 hours or more, and in that time, no breaks, lunch or peeing. All in one small room.
That’s insane. I’d have to get a wine hat and some kind of piss jug rigged up.
Catheter condom. Also handy for road trips.
I’m not okay with it but it’s the type of problem that can only be solved by them. They have to go on strike and protest.
In a vacuum, yes. The problem is that when, say, chip fabricators go on strike, orders for microchips don’t get fulfilled on time and the company loses money. When SAG goes on strike for months, movies get delayed, and people usually cheer them on in solidarity. When MEDICAL professionals go on strike en mass, people will die… Quickly, in some cases. People say they support us, and I get a free breakfast once a year at Denny’s during Nurse’s Week, but nobody’s going to cheer on the picket line outside when their dad or grandmother is INSIDE, sitting in their own poop, or not being fed, or having respiratory distress.
You don’t go into nursing for the money or easy work. You don’t even do it because it’s “just a job to pay the bills” because there’s way easier ways to make this little money. You do it to because you’re the kind of person who is more fulfilled by helping a stranger than by helping yourself, and those people are not ok with risking the life and safety of their patients over a shift differential. A LOT of nurses would cross the line to help them anyway, which would negate the whole effort… It sucks, but that’s it.
I’ve been a nurse for about 10 years now after getting out of the military, so I have some perspective on this, but I don’t know what the way forward is without letting a couple of vulnerable people die to catalyze change in the field.
I understand, but you guys are setting yourselves on fire to keep society warm.
In Japan when bus drivers go on strike they don’t stop the buses, but they stop taking bus fare from riders so the company doesn’t get paid. Maybe something involving medical notes so they can’t get billing codes.
That would be the perfect balance, but we’re not the ones taking the money like the bus drivers. Even if we were, they can always send a bill later. Messing with the notes would be falsifying medical records, which is one of the Cardinals sins of healthcare… and is also a crime.
Hey, regarding false medical notes, I’ve got a recently discovered whopper of falsehood. I’m going to keep this vague.
Patient suddenly can’t walk/stand, has very limited sensation in lower limbs. Goes to ER, spinal cord compression protocol clears and they are admitted. Long weekend of no progress. Patient leaves in a wheel chair, almost no change in symptoms.
Years later, they are collecting medical records for new doc and discover the notes from that stay in the hospital saying that all the symptoms spontaneously resolved before discharge. Wtf
Miracled! I wonder why they would lie about it, unless money?
Nurses can and do strike. People support them because organized nurses who can enforce collective decisions provide the best care.
There was just a victory in New York:
https://www.ajmc.com/view/historic-nyc-nursing-strike-ends-with-3-year-contract-wins
I’m aware this has happened a few times, but I don’t fully understand how. I keep meaning to look into it further, but I’ve never seen a detailed explanation of who was caring for people while this was going on. Maybe it’s buried in one of those articles somewhere, but I don’t have time to read through them right now.
Nurses strike all the time.
Here is a list of some strikes in US only. 2026: https://nurse.org/articles/nurse-strikes-list/, 2025: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/7-healthcare-strikes-in-2025/
Sometimes they maintain minimum care. There is advance notice provided. Nurses can also do things like provide care but not chart it in the correct way to get “counted” by their funding model. So the employer loses money while patient care is if anything improved.
We have to vote. They can’t be left alone.
We vote, but it’s not enough.
Do you? Do we? We currently consistently have about 20-50% of the population in Europe voting for far-right to conservative - parties that don’t give 2 shits about medical staff unless they require treatment. And even then, some of them don’t care about them because “do your job and stop whining”.
And that’s just the people that vote. At municipal level the voter participation is abysmal.
It’s the same situation in the US. My own mother votes for the most vile Republicans against our interests because she’s been so stuffed with hate and tribalism from Fox news all she cares about is that dopamine hit from “my team is winning”. No amount of reasoning will overcome that addictive hit of dopamine.
It’s a carefully manufactured propaganda machine funded by people with power we could only dream about reaching out from here to the EU.
Even the youth here in the south vote against their interests because abortion and immigrants bad jesus good. Education has been dismantled and even if they knew what was going on our districts are so gerrymandered it probably wouldn’t matter.
People need to be inoculated against billionaire propoganda, but how do you do that when they control the media and schools?
We’re not going to get anything done done within the system because they control the system. Strikes and violence or extremely disruptive protesting are going to have to happen.
The better question is why are the US Labor Laws still shitty. The Scandinavian countries leave everybody in their dust trail and the USA should simply copy them. Good luck finding the politicians, uncorrupt ones, that will change the laws.
Because the wealthy can afford to have well-rested medical professionals at a moment’s notice. Elites would care much more about the wellbeing of the typical doctor, if they had to have the ordinary doctor working on them.
This is why a very conservative estimate of 1/20 hospital deaths are attributed to medical error.
Capitalism can only provide basic services to everyone if those services are borderline slavery. It works for all the basic needs : food, healthcare, construction.
One might say it only works through slavery for everything because most of the non essential things come from other countries you can call colonies. But the thing is that without redistribution the basic services cannot be paid correctly.
Capitalism has no pity.
