”I love swimming laps for exercise and do it regularly when I can. Imagine, though, that the water at my regular pool was suddenly so cold that I could barely stand it or, alternatively, so hot I felt myself overheating to the point of being unwell. Doing laps might still be good exercise but it wouldn’t feel good and would be harder than necessary.
Imagine if I complained about the temperature of the water and was told that maintaining a working thermostat for the pool wasn’t in the budget. Then picture how I would feel if the time available for swimming kept getting shorter and shorter, and when I complained about that, I was told that I just needed to swim harder and faster in the lessened time available. Add in that every swim required a long computer assessment, and the time it took to complete the assessment came off the time allotted for my swim.
Finally, imagine that the pool fired all the lifeguards to save money and one day, another swimmer got into trouble and drowned, and I tried to save them but couldn’t get to that person in time.
If after all that, someone asked me, “Do you want to keep swimming for exercise?” I would of course answer yes, emphatically, but not in that place. The problem is, from what I hear anecdotally, working as a nurse in so many hospitals right now is very similar to swimming in that underresourced pool.”
– Theresa L. Brown, PhD, BSN, RN