ECM: What a Waste of Money/A New Home

ECM: What a Waste of Money

A Guest Commentary By

DeDe

As a past employee, I quit, did not get fired. I worked as an employee at ECM for over six years and this past year there has been a subject that has really bothered me. I also have enough sense to know that a "Letter To The Editor" would not be printed about this because of all of the money that they might lose from advertisements from RegionalCare Hospital.

Has anyone noticed all of the large half page and full page ads.that are being put in the newspaper almost on a daily basis? The hospital has ads from how good they are to the equipment they have gotten. They are even paying for big half page ads on new doctors coming here. Shouldn't these doctors be paying for these ads? Yet, they are advertised under the name of ECM.

I don't personally think people care about this "bragging" near as much as they care about results. I can't even begin to know the extent of money, thousands or maybe millions of dollars being wasted on all of these ads. People that have ever been a patient at this hospital know the type of service they receive (good or bad). Most people don't care anything at all about these one hundred percent ratings that they receive, all the patient cares about is the type of service and the results of hospital stay.

All of these ads and money could definitely be spent in a wiser way. ECM should take all of this"extra money" that they have to waste on ads and give their employees a much needed raise, more money. From RNs who are over worked and spend their time trying to save lives to getting a patient well to the people who clean rooms. I'm sure that the people sitting behind their desk make make plenty of money, but ECM nurses are the lowest paid nurses in any hospital within close to a hundred mile area. Nurses are leaving frequently to go to work at Athens, Huntsville, Decatur, Lawrenceburg, even as far away as Tupelo, just to name a few, where they can make more money.

Even counting driving time and gas money they can still come out ahead. Nurses are the people who work daily to make patients more comfortable, see to their pain, listen to the patients and patient's families problems and complaints. But, most important of all, they save lives. The secretaries have patients lives in their hands every time they read a patient's chart. One wrong letter in a name of a medicine could kill a person.

The techs who give fresh water, change beds, wipe bottoms to anything else a patient wants and last but not least are the housekeepers who keep hospital and patients rooms sanitized so the patient can get better and also so this hospital can get these high rankings. Some of these employees make less than people working at Burger King and McDonalds. Does this seem right to you? Take this wasted money and do what is right with it, give employers more money. After all, they are the ones saving lives, not Times Daily.

ECM WHAT A BIG WASTE OF MONEY !!!

*****

I'm Moving into a New Home

By Bailey Quarters

I've been living in unbearable conditions, so I'm moving into a much nicer home. I haven't bought the house, but it's vacant, so there's lots of room for me, my mother, her boyfriend, our six cats and a pet pig. I think it's a wise choice, particularly since I won't have to pay taxes on the property.

Technically what I'm doing is called squatting, but all I want is a better life for myself and family. Squatting is legal in some countries and I predict PresBo will soon make it legal here. In the mean time, we're having a housewarming and y'all are invited. There's oodles of room to park your choppers in the foyer, and if it should get a little nippy, the power isn't turned on yet, but there's plenty of chairs and books to burn in the fireplace.

Isn't the USA a great country?

*****

To answer Bailey's question, it used to be...



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