Volunteering
by Mike Kimel
Can someone explain to me why people volunteer at for-profit hospitals? I can understand volunteering at a not-for-profit hospital, but how is volunteering at a for-profit hospital different from, say, volunteering at Exxon-Mobil or Wal-Mart?
That’s what you have to do to get into medical or nursing school.
chrismealy,
Many (most?) of the volunteers I’ve seen at hospitals are 50 years old plus. (I know a few of them.) I’m pretty sure most of that crowd isn’t going to medical school. And then there are the volunteers who come in every so often to entertain patients. (FYI, my aunt and uncle are part of a clown troop that goes around to hospitals – for profit hospitals included – to entertain patients at no cost. I think the youngest member of the troop is probably in her late 60s. There was one guy in his 90s but I think he’s dead now.)
Where did you get that bizarre idea?
Conpassion. Sense of community. Things economists wouldn’t understand. 🙂
Even a for profit hospital has the same essential mission as a not for profit, and the same sorts of people from the community.
volunteering at Exxon-Mobil or Wal-Mart?
not exactly walmart, but ive helped people & explained equipment at hardware stores…
I have O negative blood. O negative blood is called the “universal donor” because any body can take it. It’s amazing the number of people who want me to go donate my blood to a donation center which will then sell it. Nobody thinks the doctor is being mercenary when he demands top dollar to perform a blood transfussion, but people have been conditioned to think that I am wrong to not freely give what is so badly needed.
STR,
My wife and I feed, trap, spay and neuter feral cats and dogs, and when they’re very small, we try to find them homes. (We have two four week old kittens in the garage now – their mother was hit by a car. If you’d like a kitten drop me a line.) But it would never occur to me to provide those services at a puppy mill and not because the animals there don’t need compassion (quite the opposite in fact). The difference is that in a puppy mill, If I show up with food or volunteer to pay for vet services, the owner simply provides less of that service and pockets the change. Nobody is providing less any less food or fewer neutering services to a little colony of cats that live next to the Cuyahoga river because I feed them.
Now take two hospitals, one is for profit and one is not. Volunteer at the not-for-profit and they might shift some resources around. Perhaps there will be one fewer nurse at the wing where you volunteer, but barring fraud or waste the resources will go somewhere else in the hospital. Volunteer at the for profit hospital and resources that were previously going to hospital may well come out of the hospital by adding to shareholder profits, which are the same mechanics as you would find if a horde of volunteers offered up ten or twenty hours a week to Walmart.
Put another way… the choice is generally not “volunteer v. don’t volunteer.” Those who feel a certain type of compassion are more likely to be deciding between “volunteer at A or volunteer at B.” And I’m arguing that it is certainly no less compassionate to volunteer at the not-for-profit, plus you don’t have to concern yourself whether the fact that the resources you put in will lead to an equal number of resources taken out through profit.
My father (then aged 70) started working aswa volunteer at a for-profit hospital after my mother died there. During her stay, he had become close friends with many of the staff & volunteers & other patient’s families and he enjoyed working there. He continued as a volunteer for 4 or 5 years after my mother’s death. I suspect that is a common scenario.
I would bet that the number of people who can identify whether a particular hospital is for-profit or nont-for-profit just off the top of their head is pretty small. In addition, hospitals which had once been not-for-profit but which have been folded into for-profit chains aren’t going to be bruiting their new status to anyone but the shareholders.
rjs,
Sure, everyone will answer a question now and again, whether they know what they’re talking about or not. But you aren’t simply showing up at the hardware store for ten or twenty hours a week for the purpose of providing unpaid advice to buyers. The idea, in fact, is ludicrous enough that if you set up a little kiosk with an “ask me about lumber” sign somewhere inside a Home Depot they’d chase you off. Come back a second time and the cops would be involved.
But go to NASA space center in Titusville, FL, and you’ll find a retired engineer sitting next to the Saturn 5 with a sign that says “ask me about the space program” (actually, I can’t remember the wording) with more than NASA’s blessing, he’s got NASA’s encouragement.
cursed,
Its a common theme with organ donations too.
wkj,
I suspect you’re right.
Praha,
Ayup… I think in an area in which there are many not-for-profits, the for-profits don’t make a point of advertising they’re for-profit.
I suspect that the ability of volunteers to allow the shifting of resources at hospitals is pretty limited–certainly the clown troup you speak of does not free up essential resources for a not-for profit or for-profit hospital. What it does is make the patients stay at the facility a bit more pleasant. I would submit that if your services on behalf of animals was limited to exercising animals, giving them some comfort etc that your volunteering to do that at a puppy mill would not free up their resources either because by definition that is not part of their mission.
However a hospital is owned, it gets down to patients, families, physicians and nurses. it is a part of the community. People are hurting.
Rarely do volunteers cause any shift of essential resources, or even non-essential resources. It is just people being nice to people. Probably would not pass any economics test, too irrational, doing nice things.
1) It may be meaningfully closer to their home.
2) it may have a nicer physical plant.
3) It’s something to do and better than doing nothing.
4) For young people, the self interest of earning a resume line is the driving force.
5) They want to get better treatment when they are admitted. Altruism often embeds some degree of self interest as evolutionary biology suggests.
6) Profit is not bad. And certainly not so bad that it should deter volnteering.
This will drive the liberals crazy…..
As a direct result of Obamacare, health insurance companies are gearing up to buy hospitals and physicians practices, so as to achieve the integration pushed by Obamacare and various DHHS-CMS initiatives.
Obamacare requires huge amounts of human capital, financial capital and IT resources, guess who has the ability to acquire and deploy all three?
Mike – I believe its actually illegal to sell you organs.
Not like you can go on Craiglist and auction up a kidney…
Islam will change
Mike,
One other source of volunteers are kids. My two oldest kids volunteer at hospitals as a requirement to accomplish public service so they can graduate from High School. Basically its been mandated by the government that they volunteer – so they picked something they were interested in seeing up close – hospitals and health care. The youngest would escort visitors around the hospital to make sure they didn’t get lost why the oldest helped in the blood lab 1 year and with kids in the cancer ward the next. This was a for-profit hospital and the local public school district had it as a list of approved volunteer spots. (there were a long list of animal shelters and such on the list also BTW)
I know a Boy Scout Troop who made 3 Eagle Scouts with volunteer projects at the local High School. These projects normally would have been done with school funds and union workers, but instead were done at no cost to the school district – who I am pretty sure just moved the funds to the next project on the list.
Bottom line there are lots of volunteer positions out there in for-profit organizations. How many unpaid intern positions do you know of? What is the difference if I volunteer at the hospital or do an unpaid internship at one? They both go on the resume.
And to second what Mark said – profit is not bad – which was implied in your question.
Islam will change
In for profit institutions volunteers can replace paying jobs. Volunteers used to bring books to patients, guess they are not needed anymore. The savings for the institution will never reach the customer. Free labor is just more profit.
Actually, the store should employ enough well trained clerks to advise the customer. But, I too appreciate a nice customer helping me, he is likely to know more than an untrained clerk.
A few comments to Mark, Buff, and STR,
I have nothing against profit and didn’t say profits are bad. I just don’t think most people will as happily contribute to someone else’s profits as they will to a non-profit activity if they are able to distinguish between for profit and not for profit. That’s certainly true fro me.
I suspect that distinction (for profit v. not for profit) is true for just about everyone. People will volunteer at a hospital but not at Exxon Mobil because even the for profit hospital doesn’t advertise itself to the public as “for profit” which put it in the same category as a “not for profit” in people’s minds.
Most people know the difference Mike. People volunteer at hospitals of all kinds because of who is there and what is happening in the building.
By the way, some of the snottiest bastards I have ever known were executives at not-for-profit hospitals.
Mrs. R works at a for-profit nursing home, and also volunteers on occasion. I particularly like the activity department bake sales, because Mrs. R tends to do a test batch, and I volunteer to judge the results.
My local private nonprofit mega-hospital is on a building binge. In recent years, it has built several outpatient facilities for such things as cancer treatment and something called “women’s health.” I put the latter phrase in quotation marks because although they perform mammograms and bone scans, they also take blood–quite badly as it happens–and perform other administrative functions for the main hospital. Now they are building a new 6 story wing on the main structure for emergency services and intensive care.
Where’s the money coming from? Glad you asked. About 2 years ago, auditors from CMS discovered that the hospital had been claiming reimbursement for services to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to which it was not entitled. Gasp! Really? Yep, the No. 2 guy in the business end of the operation was found to have falsely claimed that the hospital was a PUBLIC not-for-profit organization. He raked in mega-bucks for the hospital by this simple means and was indicted for fraud as a result. The hospital paid a few million in fines and kept on trucking.
No.2 ratted out the No. 3 guy as a co-conspirator and in exchange, got a suspended sentence. The No.3 guy is presently up for trial and is thought to be a shoo-in for jail time because he didn’t have the brains to rat No. 2 out first. Meanwhile, the City Counsel cancelled the planned purchase of an extended ladder fire truck for lack of funds. The Moral of This Story is if the new wing burns down with you in it, it’s not the fault of the mega-hospital’s trustees. Who are doing quite well financially, thank you kindly, and are already planning their next personnel acquisition project. They are going to add a couple of Class A chest crackers from a nearby University Med School thus sucking all the air out of the medical atmosphere in this part of SWGA and the FL Panhandle.
The volunteers are very nice people. And, all their nieces and nephews work at this nonprofit outfit. They have good jobs in a county where good jobs are rare as hens’ teeth. Everyone’s happy. Especially me. The ER is way to small and they need more staff for ICU. I’d sure like to be more comfortable the next time I use my frequent flyer miles at my friendly, neighborhood nonprofit. 😉 NancyO
Buff,
I actually agree with most of what you wrote. I am merely saying (and you seem to be backing me up), people generally don’t volunteer at for profit causes. Period.
That isn’t to say there isn’t waste and fraud and abuse at the not for profits too. It merely says that you have an extra layer taking resources out at the “for profit” sector. That, plus the non-volunteering thing at sectors that are obviously for profit v. volunteering at sectors that are “not for profit” are the two differences I see. Conclusion – they may well be correlated.
Actually people do. There are all those god awful internships that people are expected to volunteer for in hopes of getting a job. Look at the Wall Street Journal front web page today, and they have a “volunteer in hope of getting a job” advice column. Ever since Reagan, the general attitude is that Americans don’t deserve to get paid. This compulsory volunteering in high school is part of it as are internships and the war against unions and the middle class.
Until we start getting serious about getting more people paid more money, our economy is going to stay in the dumpster.
People whom volunteer at hospital provides the “Human” face at the hospital. Most physicians, nurses, technicians have to focus on the medical issues with the patients that is in the hospital. Rarely they have time sit down and chat with the patient, gets to know their background, history etc.
I applaud the people whom volunteer their time and really be part of the human race when they volunteer in the hospital. I don’t understand why there should be a difference between a for profit and non-profit hospital. They all serve the same purpose. The organization can be very different, some hospitals are better than others- profit or non-profit. But the volunteers serves to help other human being in a noble way.
It seems to me that our left leaning author implys someways that for profits hospitals are taking advantage of volunteers, I could probably say if there’s a right leaning author- non-profits are taking advantage of volunteers too. Just my humble two cents
A firm of which I am aware (but which will go unnamed) encourages its employees to submit resource-saving ideas through the company “green” program. The solicitation document indicates that the firm will undertake only those ideas which do not add to costs. With zero cost as the upper limit, those resource-saving ideas the firm is willing to undertake will, on average, save the firm money. The firm is using a “feel good” program to find ways to save money and add to profit.
The “feel good” element seems the likeliest reason to volunteer at a hospital, whatever the tax status of the hospital may be. I could be wrong, but my impression is that most hospital volunteers interact with patients or their families. They could make just as large an economic contribution (perhaps larger) to the hospital by volunteering to do laundry or handle trash. If it’s human contact and a feeling of making a direct contribution to the welfare of someone in unfortunate circumstances that is being sought, then the tax status of the hospital doesn’t matter. Choosing to volunteer at a for-profit hospital over an oil company then makes perfect sense.
By the way, parents are encouraged to volunteer at some for profit schools. I did it at my kids’ pre-school when it was just getting started. I wouldn’t do the same for a for-profit prison. Well, maybe if one of my kids was there, I would.
Two reasons. One is that some hospitals provide volunteers with meals at the cafeteria, breakfast and lunch for volunterring a full morning.
Second, like other unpaid intern work, it’s a way to make a good impression, show responsible work ethic as a step in getting hired in a regular job.
I have volunteered at a local Catholic hospital for the last several years. It has now been bought by a for-profit business, and I’ve been wondering about if I should continue to do what I do. As it turns out, my volunteering puts me in contact with patients, and that would be so whether I did this particular task in a for-profit or not-for-profit place. The hospital is about 5 minutes from my house, and I enjoy interacting with the patients. If I worked in the gift shop, or stuffed envelopes in a hospital office, or worked in a lab, I might not be so willing to volunteer there.