Identity theft. Wow. It's in all the news today: millions of veteran's names and numbers stolen! It's a weird social problem to have...and it's spreading like a virus...like chicken pox or something. Each victim gets his/her identity stolen and finds himself entangled with some sociopath who has no scruples about screwing up the life attached to the "identity". It's a social disease whose symptoms are a continual preoccupaton with sorting out financial messes and their consequences...and there's no vaccine...maybe HIPPA was supposed to be the vaccine, but as it turns out, it's ineffective.
The "identity" is really a series of computer files that describe your past behaviors in terms of your dealings with money, mostly. Many of us expend a certain amount of effort to ensure that this "identity" describes a responsible, prosperous citizen...because in this society as long as you can be identified that way, you are allowed a lot of flexibility in your life....you can borrow money, you can have a phone installed, you can sign up with the power company without having to come up with a deposit, you can buy on credit, you can get a job. If you become "identified" as an irresponsible, debt-dodging flake...well, no help for you from the financial sector of the society; you can buy everything with cash...if you can get anybody to hire you so you have some.
So if identity theft becomes so common that some huge sector of the population has "identities" that don't actually reflect them - either because they're the victim of identity theft or because they're the perpetrator of it - then "identity" becomes an unreliable factor when trying to judge about investment risk...credit card companies, mortgage lenders, banks will no longer be able to rely on this tool to determine the creditworthiness of their customers.
What will they use? Fingerprints? Retinal scans? How will a retinal scan tell them I'm a good credit risk?...it can for sure tell them I'm "me"...but who, exactly "me" is, is the problem...
Or will each of us, finally, just have his or her own doppleganger...the guy who is sharing the "identity" with us...the guy we've never met who buys the Hawaiian Vacation at Christmas...and accept it as a way of life...
Nothing new has occurred regarding our local case of stolen identities...government moves slowly, as we all know...and by the time the investigation is complete, we'll have moved on...and have gotten comfortable with our dopplegangers.
I wonder how the investigation on the assaultive unit is going. Sounds scary up there. Anybody know? Best wishes for a speedy recovery to the staff there...is the toxic patient out of ICU yet? Is there anything the rest of us can do to help up there? Please Blog!
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7 comments:
The folks who work on the assualtive unit are exceptional people. Between taking transfers that belong in jail, (mental illness or no mental illness), and caring for brain injured clients, who belong somewhere other than the mental hospital, they also do their jobs with those who somewhat benefit from long term mental health care. I think each one of them deserves a mental health day just cause. Maybe now that a majority of the mandatory training is done, they could have one. Again, my suggestion is, have the RN 3's and 4's cover the unit, and give the linestaff a day. Now in this case, the 3's and 4's on this unit need a day as well, because they have been working their unit. I hear they have been working pretty hard and have been very supportive of their linestaff. Other 3's and 4's would benefit from following suit, because linestaff would see that they can work, do the job, instead of just talk about how the job need be done, with hardly ever going into the milieu. Our kudoos to the staff on the assualtive team and our prayers, as well.
Hear! Hear! Great suggestions! And I join you in sending prayers and supportive thoughts to staff and patients on that team.
g.f.
Gadde Fly,
All I know is that millions of vets are getting lots of legal support for their stolen information. Why are those that have been affected not telling the newspapers or people upstairs about their rights being violated? Why isn't this manager being demoted to an RN 1 at the very least? Is staff waiting around to see if their stolen identities are being charged thousands of dollars first?
What will it finally take before people are so outraged that they finally DO something, rather than bitching and moaning through the Blog instead?
Retake the HPPA class again....big deal. It didn't mean much to him the first time around, what will it mean the second? At least make sure he gets the fine, otherwise no one else will take HPPA violations seriously. The Madhouse surely knows that it is making precedent here, with this nurse manager and with this particular violation. What are people afraid of?
I am a former RN at the madhouse. I can tell you all that I left because there is a general apathy about the contentment of the staff. Low pay and poor benefits can be tolerated if there is a respect granted to staff and the facility does other things to try to make the staff happy. Ft Logan doesn't understand this concept. Things like getting requested time off, getting a whole weekend off (what a concept!!) What kind of family life can someone have who works every fri and sat for years!! Even if two nurses agree to each work a every other weekend for the whole weekend, they are turned down. I have found that even simple things like a thank you note from administration acknowledging hard work makes things so much easier to take when times are tough. An occasional pizza ordered for staff of a shift that has had a particularly hard week (ie recent difficulties on assaultive team!!) There are lots of ways to make staff appreciated that just take a little thought and very little or no money. That is the kind of thing that would increase morale. From what I hear from my many contacts at the madhouse, this is completely lacking. Then to top off recent high acuity, the staff on the admission team has their vital stats stolen and have gotten no satisfaction from those who are responsible either by their job description or their behavior. It all makes me relieved that I am a former employee. There are places out there that treat their staff respectfully and pay at least $5/hr more.
The hospital will not protect you. The hospital will only protect the hospital. If you are one of tose folks who got you #'s taken get help on your own. Do Not Wait for the hospital.Go to CSAP they have free lawyer's do something.
I just feel so sad and empty about people being hit, and hurt, and the emotional pain that goes with it from my personal experience. This affects me deeply, and for the first time I feel like I need some time off or a changet to get of my funk. Any suggestions??? I'm starting to feel PTSD sorta... like but different, because I still hope change is possible..
Really nice rant on identity theft.
It occurs to me that mental illness is a lot like that. You get involuntarily linked up with an alter that screws up your life in bizarre undesired ways. Don't quite know where to go with that, but it struck me as interesting. (is it a) metaphor? ;-)
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