One of the discourse communities i identify with is my job as a health care worker. I work in a hospital as a phlebotomist. We face many issues as healthcare workers, ranging from short staff to poor funding but one issue that is most concerning is poor funding. The COVID crisis, that we are still experiencing is what made this issue come to light the most. America does not prioritize healthcare as much as other aspects of society. Healthcare is essential, but it has been always pushed back because there hasn’t been a moment like this in a while. Yet, even before it had been a pandemic, we were still moving at leisure as the numbers grew. This lead to many hospitals being hit hard by the effects of COVID, putting many patients at risk and many lives lost. Hospitals would reach out to government officials in hopes of more ventilators being that the effects of COVID weaken the respiratory system, so many patients needed them in order to continue their fight. However, the government officials did not want to allocate the money to hospitals to supply them with more machinery. Though this is one of the recent struggles, healthcare has not always been the most prioritized within the economy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-shortage-hospital-icu-coronavirus/
https://www.ft.com/content/3bbb4f7c-890e-11ea-a01c-a28a3e3fbd33
Yes. This is great. Your DC may need to be more specific. Is it all healthcare workers or is it a specific group of health care worker? Is it more that those that are considered techs are not being prioritized? Or is it all hospital workers? Which it can be, especially as doctors, nurses, and others that work in a hospital understand the healthcare system differently from those in health care but in private practice or other settings. There is also a different way of communicating and different language–almost. Work on making your problems more specific.
I really like the topic you chose with your DC, I am also a health care worker and can relate to your concerns. As x-ray tech I can say that all departments at hospitals were affected with Covid. We had a shortage in PPE , disinfecting supplies and staff. It has been a difficult time for us all.
Your topic is very interesting and specially important at this time. The images of healthcare workers having to use trash bags as protection against COVID19 in the beginning of the pandemic are still fresh in my mind. The issue with understaffing was probably accentuated once the pandemic hit. Hopefully, this experience will bring the issues to light and create the necessary changes for the healthcare industry.