Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

socalmd123 t1_ityaetm wrote

Very good acting. However my wife is a nurse and makes 150K/YR working 3 days per week and is Jessica Chastain's age. I'd recommend this movie however the part where she can't afford health insurance is ridiculous. Nurses are well paid and have excellent benefits. I'm a doctor so the whole hospital bashing was so over the top and made the scapegoat for the benefit of hollywood drama.

−19

SQUID_FUCKER t1_itytlkl wrote

It wasn't that she wouldn't have benefits. She was relatively new, she needed to be there for 6 months to qualify. That's pretty standard in a lot of places.

25

DearestBadger t1_ityu13x wrote

The hospital bashing is more than justified and was not nearly enough for my taste. They all let him get away with the murders. Hundreds of people died because nobody intervened. Remember that this is based on a true story.

22

NurseMia96 t1_itzy68f wrote

The average salary of a nurse is certainly not 150k outside of travel nursing or living in California. The movie was also set in 2003 so you can’t compare what nurses are making now to then. Nursing has always been a relatively lower paying job until the pandemic hit and the precedents that management had been setting to optimize profits and fuck over staff were given the middle finger by staff nurses who then left. THEN salaries were raised but still mostly only for travel nurses. If you’re a doctor then I’m surprised you don’t know all this…unless you’re a doctor who has become upper management for a hospital. Every doctor I know has no love for management and can see the way hospitals have abused staff to maximize profits.

18

Pradfanne t1_iu0ykwq wrote

It's based on a real story. Now I'm not sure how much of it is real, but if he has a real life kill count of 29 that he plead guilty too and it's assumed to be in the hundreds. Then the hospitals did fuck up big time.

It's not only Hollywood drama, it happened for real

12

friendofelephants t1_iug4wok wrote

The way that the hospitals were portrayed protecting their own interests and not patients was accurate, but I agree with the above commenter that it wasn’t realistic how they portrayed her struggling financially that much. Could hardly afford shoes for her daughter, etc. Nurses do pretty well income-wise for themselves, and the movie made it seem like they are paid as much as retail workers.

2

-lover-of-books- t1_iugy2m3 wrote

It's 2003, she is a single mom of two kids, she lives in a house in new york, lives on a single salary, has to pay a babysitter, nurses definitely weren't making bank back then, plus she had a medical condition that required expensive tests, specialists, and medications that all cost a lot of money.

So yea, I'd say the struggle was pretty accurate.

And in many states, they are making very little more than some retail places. Nurses in states like Florida still start out making on the $20s an hour.

4

unlikedemon t1_iu27ac7 wrote

They mentioned explicitly quite a few times that she needed to be there a few more months for be able to receive benefits (she was new). It had nothing to do with affordability as she paid $1k earlier in the movie out of pocket.

8

gopms t1_iubqskq wrote

But they did also show that she was struggling with money. She clearly had a hard time paying the price for the tests and she was a week behind on paying the babysitter. She also said that she was sorry her daughter couldn’t have as much as her friends. So the point still stands that the movie depicts nurses as not making much money. According to the internet nurses in New Jersey make an average of $88,000 a year. There is no reason to think Amy would make less than average at that stage in her career and working in the ICU. Not enough to live lavishly but enough to pay the babysitter.

1

-lover-of-books- t1_iugy97l wrote

That may be the wage now, but definitely not in 2003, when this took place. And factor in being a single mom, with a medical conditions she had for a while with expensive tests and specialists and medications, plus a house and a babysitter she has to pay. I can very much believe she would struggle to make ends meet. Nurses only recently are starting to be paid a wage that reflects the work we put in.

2

gopms t1_iuhc8d6 wrote

A) the wage would be different but so would the cost of living so presumably she was making the equivalent of the average wage then which would go (at least) as far as it does now. B) my comment was in response to someone who seemed to be disputing that Amy was struggling financially (in response to someone who thought that was unrealistic given what nurses make) so I was pointing out that the film shows she was struggling financially (presumably for all the reasons you point out).

2

ImSometimesSmart t1_iuegwz5 wrote

In america you wait a maximum of 3 months to get insurance and that gap is covered by insurance from previous workplace.

−1

CaveDeco t1_iuh5din wrote

That is not true at all…

First, this was depicted as being in 2003, the affordable care act (ACA aka Obamacare), came into effect only in 2014, and was the first time it was required that employers have no more than a 90 day waiting period. Before the ACA it was not uncommon for a year long waiting period after starting a new job before becoming eligible for health insurance. 3 months is the law today, but not the case in 2003.

Second, no gap is paid for by previous employers. The gap you are talking about is what is known as COBRA, but basically once you leave a workplace they have to offer you the ABILITY to stay on their plan for 18 months, but they have no obligation to PAY for it. Generally employer insurance is mostly paid by the employer, with the employee paying a very small portion. When you use cobra as an someone not employed you have to pay BOTH portions. I left a job recently and I paid ~$100 each check while there. For me to go onto cobra is was going to be ~$1500 a month.

4

-lover-of-books- t1_iugx86a wrote

She was a single mom of 2 kids in new york, with a house and babysitter and a single income, plus a medical conditions with high out of pocket expenses. It was 100% accurate. And as a nurse, we definitely do not always have excellent benefits...especialy when you add in lots of medical bills and medications. And this was 2003, not 2022.

And 9 hospitals shuffled this nurse around for like 15 years, many knowing he was responsible for killing or harming patients but couldn't prove it or didn't want the liability, so they let him be hired by the next hospital. Then the last hospital covered up once they found fowl play and only finally went to the cops months later because they legally had to, and slowed down the investigation by not being forthcoming with results and information....which resulted in many more deaths. He potentially killed over 400 patients over his life as a nurse, makes him the most prolific serial killer in America.

You should read the book, it goes into so much detail on his entire life, every hospital he worked at, his psych history, suicide attempts, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, stalking, multiple arrests, animal abuse, the cover ups by the hospitals, how he got away with being shuffled around.

They had so much content to use, I wish they made this a mini series instead!!! Would have been even better!!

2

CaveDeco t1_iuh5w4x wrote

  1. Pre-ACA. Year long waits for insurance eligibility were very common, and individual plans were obscene, and I say obscene compared to todays govt marketplace rates. What you can find on the govt marketplace still a steal compared to then!! It’s still a fraction of the cost even without including inflation.
2

Open_Grapefruit_2713 t1_ityen4e wrote

Can some one explain to me the beginning .. when she flipped the patient over who I would assume was in a coma ? You

−1

-lover-of-books- t1_iugx4zs wrote

She was turning the patient on their side to relieve pressure on the tail bone, which can lead to a pressure ulcer or beadsore. Patients who can't move themselves must be manually turned every couple hours to shift pressure off boney parts of the bodies. You should never ever turn a patient yourself because you can injury yourself, but people do it because of short staffing.

1