Tristin Kate Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her “abuser” five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.
So…where’s the letter? Pretty telling when the NYPost bloviates about this and doesn’t actually link to the letter.
Edit: Here it is and it’s basically an indictment of capitalism - https://reader.mediawiremobile.com/TheOakwoodRegister/issues/208670/viewer?page=3
Ever since I was young. I expressed interest in healthcare and becoming a nurse, so I began my study I gave my heart, my body, and my mind to you My long days and hours dedicated and giving you my all. There were times that working in the emergency room were extremely difficult, but also extremely rewarding. I have cried with my patients, with their families, and for them. They have even been there for me, and emotionally supported me during my hard times. The hands of all the patients and families that I have held, hold mine with me everyday of my nursing career encouraging me and showing me why I do what I do. I thought that would be all I needed to be able to care for them, and I know I had told you I would be with you to the end.
Told you I would be there through the good and the bad but you have taken my heart and slowly crushed the goodness it had.
You love bombed me with affection, because I knew I was going into something that matters. You made me feel comfortable, despite the rumors of your abusive past that I didn’t want to believe. The compliments, pizzas, and thank you letters began to slowly have less meaning. The staff I had to help began to go away. They were unnecessary, in your eyes but so necessary for the patients and nurses to provide what you advertise as “quality care”. When I thought it couldn’t get worse you proved me very wrong when you started gaslighting and manipulating us.
You go around asking my colleagues and I what we need to help patients and improve satisfaction scores but when we tell you the truth you instead send us online courses saying we need to smile more and be friendlier. I remember the first time I heard about nurses getting hit and how you asked them what they did to get hurt or didn’t do to prevent someone else from hurting them. Remember, you cant try to protect yourself by fighting back just lay there with your hands over your head during the minutes it takes for security to come. You started blaming us for things out of our control. Started criminally charging my colleagues, for things that were from what you are doing. As you know, the law doesn’t care for the Swiss Cheese Model." I no longer feel like you care about me or the people you say you serve. I sit at my front desk just waiting for someone to come in and shoot my patients and I, just because of your lack of care for our protection You haven’t even given us metal detectors or proper security to promptly keep us safe. You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.
If you say you cared, why don’t you listen while we beg on our hands and knees. You say that we do so much and that we put up with so much When we think we are finally going to get the love and support we deserve, we only walk in to get free pizza and pens for the “healthcare heroes”. Truth is you only care about your personal greed.
I want so desperately to continue to help people, but I cannot stay in this abusive relationship. You have asked me to do more with less every day, beating me to the point that my body and mind feel like they are black, bruised, and bleeding out. I’m only sorry to my colleagues and patients, you deserve so much better.
But my abusive partner is relentless, and if I stay, I will only lose my sanity and possibly my life forever.
Thank you. That article is terrible. Fucking ads taking precedence over the damn news and I gave up trying to find the letter.
NY Post is a rag
Even with adblockers on and reading the article I either missed the letter or it was buried in a link.
Thanks for posting that here
thanks for sharing. you accidentally shared link containing Facebook trackers. Here’s the clean link: https://reader.mediawiremobile.com/TheOakwoodRegister/issues/208670/viewer?page=1
Thank you. I just copied it from the article without realizing that. I’ll update. I appreciate you!
All you got out of that was “capitalism bad” ?
The fuck…
I’m in the medical field. Capitalism and quality healthcare are incompatible. Any capitalist country with good healthcare only has good healthcare because they keep capitalism out of it. It gets immediately worse when capitalism is reintroduced to the field. Look at the UK and Canada for reference. Not to mention, her suicide note explicitly says profit is the reason that her and her co-workers are suffering. Educate yourself on the issues or shut the fuck up
Our politicians are pushing hard for an American system in Canada, the provincial Conservative (Republican) governments are underfunding healthcare so they can turn around and say “See!? This is why we need a two tier system.” it’s bullshit.
Straight out of the republican handbook. I wish y’all the best
They’re scamming you out of the right to take care of your own bodies. Get loud before it’s too late.
But but but WiAtInG TiMeS! I cAn’T gEt InStAnT aPpOiNtMeNtS wItH SoCiAlIsM HeAlThCaRe!!
Oh, the first available appointment I can make in the current capitalist system is two weeks out? Teehee… Shhhh. I want to fight for the owners. Teehee 🤭
Two weeks? I’ve had to wait months for my primary doctor.
What else would you call it? She literally says that they put her in this terrible situation with no help so that they could squeeze a few extra dollars in profit. So, yeah… that’s her point.
“You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare. You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.”
You do realize that capitalism isn’t the only economic system that works people to the bone right? She’s calling out the people who run the hospital. How you came to the conclusion that her suicide was an anti-capitalist cry is beyond me.
Did you not read the quote? She didn’t work under another system. She worked for a private healthcare provider and explicitly called out their profit motive. Don’t be ignorant.
Every corporate run health care institution is like this. Every corporate institution in America is like this. Time to get your head out of your ass.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I’m glad you said it, what a tone deaf summation.
What tone should I have used other than the deceased’s own?
“You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare. You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.”
OP edited post with letter terrible article was lacking and tonal change, but hey keep pitchforking
Perhaps one that isnt so dismissive of the entire situation. Or at least doesn’t package it in such a way as to make it easy to sweep under the rug.
You may not see it that way but many will, never reading this far. Be an ally, not a hindrance.
The fuck are you talking about?
I’m not entirely sure at this point. Maybe caught between edits?
OP posts article lacking crucial letter FP correctly calls it out FP finds letter, adds it with contradictory/dismissive tldr FP called out but edit wording fixed ME yelling at cloud US all getting dumber having read this far
My comment was neither contradictory nor dismissive. Her letter is an indictment of capitalism, specifically in the healthcare sector. If you can’t read a short letter and process it or keep track of what you’re actually discussing, maybe you should stop arguing with people.
I didn’t edit my post. I put the letter in my original comment 5 minutes after posting so what OP did is irrelevant. The letter has been there for anyone to read since I posted my original comment.
No one is making anything easy to sweep under the rug. The root cause of her complaint, in her own words, is that the system that takes advantage for her for a profit is the one that led to her death.
You don’t have to be dishonest. Read what she said in her own words.
deleted by creator
No, I actually agree with it in general. It’s that there is so much more going on and comments like that encourage people to gloss over details or skip the article entirely.
I’m as upset as anyone about our late stage capitalism but damn, I’d hoped it’d be longer before the Lemmy was overrun with cynics trying to sum everything up into a neat little package.
deleted by creator
You literally asked why and then care enough to type out that you don’t care. Fucking brilliant.
As someone who works in healthcare, I’m not sure how the system is still standing at all. And most of all no one cares about the ER—especially other specialties. It’s life draining.
Just had a call with member services at my insurance asking how I can get weekly therapy because 2-5 weeks in between that they’ve been giving me is absolutely ineffective. They replied that their therapy is stretched so thin. It’s awful.
They (hospital bosses or whatever controls the cost-cutting stuff) are hurting everyone. Patients can’t get quality or timely care. Healthcare workers have to help so many traumatic cases alongside the boo-boos. But the workers are expected to treat it like a regular job and just come in like it’s normal.
A patient dies because of a tired surgeon’s mistake. The surgeon might lose everything. The big-wigs take no responsibility for their staffing cuts to the surgery department.
I dare say that anyone working in healthcare knows a coworker who’s committed suicide because of the job. I know I do and it still haunts me even though I managed to get out.
2 suicides, 5 COVID deaths, 2 of car accidents from sleep deprivation after getting off. Not to mention the miles long list of those suffering from mental illness, burn out, drug abuse, severe stress, and injuries from work
It pains me to read that you went through this. I really hope you can find something that keeps you happy so you can make it through the losses.
Yep. I think we all do. The state of modern society is making nearly every essential job unworkable. My wife quit teaching a few years back, and I almost feel like her profession had become more malignant than medicine.
We do.
Luckily, I don’t know of anyone for certain, though I know of some medical providers that openly shared their suicidality. It was A LOT of providers, way more than most would expect. They looked like defeated remnants of previously joyful people with aspirations and hope. Many of them said that they continued to work just to pay off their loans and help their kids avoid the situation they were in.
When I quit, I left the medical system entirely. For unrelated matters, I happen to learn a lot about the patterns that abusers use on their victims, and I saw a lot of overlap with that and how the medical system I worked in treated the employees, especially the use of fear, obligation, and guilt (ie FOG). I’m convinced that healthcare managers/administrators are soulless robots without empathy that find positions of power in medical settings because they can manipulate the system, especially the providers’ innate desire to care for patients and the patients’ desperate medical situation and lack of knowledge. It really is troubling.
We have to destroy corporate rule before they destroy us
Unions.
Here is a better article and a pic of the letter to the editor from the father who found it:
https://nurse.org/articles/nurse-died-by-suicide-letter-to-abuser/
It is very nearly against the rules to post links from this site (it’s on the non-preferred list) because it is so awful. Please do better source-finding.
This is being published in FOX and NY Post, the antechamber to the right wing echosphere. Does this mean the right wing is turning against the healthcare industry?
Not saying the industry isn’t evil, but it’s also keeping a lot of people alive.
Even if they are, they aren’t going to fix it in the way you want. They’ll convince people it needs to be more privatized, that if they spent more money they would get better care.
That’s my point, if they are turning against it, it’s just to destroy another “drain on the system”.
No, the right isn’t posting her anti capitalist letter about how she was abused by her employer through overwork and lack of support for the nurses.
Right wing news is covering this because they know their audience doesn’t dig into stories. They cover outrage and the things that make people mad with the understanding that the right wing media doesn’t want follow up actions or questions. Just anger.
If you’re mad, you’re probably watching right wing media. If you’re sad, that’s the left.
Righties don’t like being sad because they lack the emotional fluency to deal with sadness. Can’t punch a loved one because we’re sad. Anger though, is depression with energy and will fuel people to action. Most don’t know what do to so they turn back to the media that angered them to know what to do, which is how we got Jan 6.
dude, you’re a philosopher 😮
you mean the Actual death panels?! wouldnt that be interesting…
We already have actual death panels.
What exactly do you think happens when Meemaw gets denied by her insurance company to get her cancer removed?
Anyone figure out what hospital in Dayton she was at?
Tristan Kate Smith is a Hero.
No need to glorify her death. This is sad and sad only. For her and those she left behind.
*an hero
stalkers.
Wut
*What?
deleted by creator
She killed herself because, for her, there was no way out. There was no way out because of a system that abuses those that exist within it.
deleted by creator
You’re either ignorant, or have no empathy.
This is the second time today I’ve run into this person spouting the same shit about suicide. They’re either a troll or someone who lacks all humanity or maybe both?
Probably both. Trolling used to be an art, now it’s just being an asshole.
deleted by creator
Probably lost a loved one to suicide. I knew a guy who walked in on his dads brains blown all over the wall. I always see people act like suicide is heroic or brave. But the hurt they leave behind is hard to separate from. Suicide is a pretty selfish act because you hand off all the pain to everyone else. The friend of mine will suffer the rest of their life among the rest of the family who were left with cleaning up after that mess
I’m not disagreeing with the entirety of your sentiment but there’s a not-insignificant portion of people that commit suicide because they are in daily pain and anguish. Wouldn’t it be just as selfish to force this person to continue living simply so that those people don’t have to deal with the fact that they failed their loved one?
Sure… get help and all but why didn’t they help, then?
I agree so hard. I have had a friend commit suicide.
I really miss her but at the same time I would never dream of pointing the finger and saying ‘How dare you! How selfish! What about me?’
It’s narcissistic and evil to make someone else’s suffering about yourself. She had been through things I was very lucky to never experience. I can’t imagine being so me-me-me as to make her death about myself.
Honestly, not everyone has the means or is mentally healthy enough (because they’re being abused and psychological deformation is a symptom of abuse) to get help when their problems are so all-consuming. When health insurance is tied to employment above the $20/hour subsistence level that most people are stuck at in this economy, TONS of otherwise normal and healthy people are at risk of slipping through the cracks of despair.
You’re not wrong, but the issue can be more broad.
The ones they leave behind are usually arrogant towards the people with depression. Ime.
If they legalized painless suicide no one would have to clean brains up and the passing could be a ceremonious celebration of free will.
I think it’s more selfish to point the finger and make someone’s suicide about yourself. That’s heinously narcissistic.
Lost a loved one to suicide. You’re full of shit.
You sound bitter. Could it be possible that you’re projecting your own past and your own issues with suicide onto other people whom you’ve never met in your life? Because, you know, you don’t know anything about them? Because before today you didn’t even know they existed?
But yeah, im sure the article was enough to go on, in your mind, to call them “a pathetic waste of life.”
It seems like you could benefit from seeing a therapist.
deleted by creator
You do not get a prize for being the biggest asshole.
I think it’s more selfish and cowardly to make someone else’s suicide about yourself. You’re making someone’s suffering about YOU. You you you you you. I have less than zero compassion for the ‘suicide is selfish’ brigade. Try a fucking ounce of consideration for others.
A good friend of mine committed suicide a few years back. While I really miss her I would never dream of pointing the finger or calling her selfish. She had been through things I was very lucky to be protected from. Making her death about me would have been heinously narcissistic.
deleted by creator
I wish I had even a modicum of the dumb certainty you do.
c/I’m14andverybadass
What the hell is wrong with you?
Some day you’ll realize the world isn’t so black and white and you don’t always know what people have or haven’t been through. You sound like the type that tells depressed people to just "“get therapy” or worse yet “just think happier”, not realizing the hurdles both can have. With any luck, when you grow up you’ll look back and realize what a heartless ass you were.
deleted by creator
Ofcourse it’s never the answer but “just get help” is easier said than done.
deleted by creator
I think what you’re missing is that in general we agree, it’s that you don’t have experience (or tolerance) enough to realize that “never” really isn’t never. You and others act as if anyone that succeeded is a coward, that they didn’t try…but many have tried so hard, for many years and still get there. From system failures to abusive caretakers or just plain old ignorance.
So when you and others label everyone who succeeds cowardly, you show us how little you know about the real world. In fact, I’m almost envious because you probably haven’t had to truly live yet, to make heartbreaking decisions with those “always options” disappearing one by one. Watching a loved one suffer, unable to help. Just remember this thread when (if) you get there, will ya?
deleted by creator
Fuck you you’re pathetic jesus christ
Removed by mod
You have zero sympathy for the person who was in so much pain that they decided ending their life was preferable and the only way out and sympathy for the people around her that didn’t help her?
Weird. I think there’s a more nuanced take on this situation but probably not… You’re probably right and she was just a selfish person who killed herself on a whim with no thought about her loved ones. 🙄
deleted by creator
Maybe they should have helped her, then. 🤷♂️
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Yes, because she definitely didn’t do that. I didn’t realize you had an inside track here.
Fuck you.
you shouldnt belittle someone elses mental anguish as nothing. we cant understand her experience and she was obviously blind to the illogical nature of her decision.
painful, but absolutely true.
we as a society in the united states have collectively decided people dont matter. guns matter. profits matter. ‘markets’ matter.
…humans are a renewable resource, think green.i cant see how voting is going to solve for it. our choices are ‘conservatives’, where lack of empathy for fellow humans is encouraged and ‘democrats’ who want to do absolutely nothing but conserve the status quo.
maybe if we can inject rank choice
Look beyond partisan options
How about you fuck off with this spam in all these posts?
