This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA.
Every time you open your hospital’s employee web portal, you can guarantee you’ll be met with more “wellness tips” from your employer. Prevent burnout by drinking herbal tea! Try yoga for your back pain! Make sure you’re practicing healthy sleep habits! Have you tried eating more leafy greens?
Yet the same hospital administration promoting these wellness tips is responsible for a large portion of the worker stress and burnout in the first place. Healthcare workers are exhausted because they’re asked to do so much with so few resources, not because they need to drink more tea. We wouldn’t have back pain in the first place if we had appropriate lift equipment, and enough staff to help us reposition patients. We’d eat more leafy greens if we had break nurses to cover us so we could actually eat the food we bring for lunch.
If management cared about our well-being, they wouldn’t be pushing these insulting wellness tips. They’d be hiring more staff, getting us the equipment we need, and responding to our concerns so we wouldn’t be so stressed and tired all the time. We deserve to be listened to and respected, not have our health trivialized with these ridiculous wellness tips.
Click here to read the article printed in the 06-04-25 Healthcare Newsletter
