Treatment of Agency Staff

I voted that I'm usually treated like staff. Of course if I'm not I don't bother them by going back! I was sent to a LTC in Oklahoma. When I got there, I was to be Charge Nurse to the whole place, search for replacements if any one called off for the next shift, and care for 30 clients with out name tags! I was the only RN. The day LPN took pity on me and stayed to give 4 pm. meds. At 5:30 before she left, I asked her how many nurses usually took care of all this. Her answer was "A RN and a LPN, when its staff, but agency costs so much they only staff with an RN!" Needless to say they never had to pay this RN again. I've done Agency since 1987 except for 2 years in Home Health and 1 in a hospital, where I loved the staff, Drs. and pts. I left the later because I couldn't work enough hours to keep up with my bills.

dear Nightngale: I didn't vote because I'm not sure about what is an agency nurse. Here in my country there aren't agency nurses but each facility has a certain number of nurses "on call", that is, when a nurse reports not to come to work beacuse of sickness or other reasons, one o these "on call" nurses is called. As she can be called even at the begining of the shift it is very common that she arrives one hour passed the shift beginning. So it is very tough to work with Pts that you don't know, and other staff members also unknown. Here the nurse is supposed to take in charge of a group of Pts (20 to 35) and guide a group of 4 0 5 other nurses with less educational level in the treatment of those patients. It is very hard to work in these conditions but everyone does until you obtain a permanent possition.

I think as agency I have definately had both the good & the bad. I do feel that most of the time I have been treated well. I have just gone " agency" since May 2002 and I was a staff Rn before that. I have worked with caring & competent agency nurses and very BAD ones but I can also say that for the "regular" staff. I think it is the person who is the nurse not the agency or staff title.

I have worked agency both per diem and traveler and I would find it hard to cast a vote just because there is such variability from hospital to hospital and individual at the hospital. I have gotten dumped on regurlaly by certain indivuduals.

It's not just a "matter of perspective" when I get assigned 5 patients with who are all PIH or post-op and have IVs, foley, PCAs, O2 and frequent vital signs and my coworker has 3 who are all routine post-partums with no meds and all they need is their fundus checked. It's not just a matter of perspective when that nurse won't even answer the call lights on my patients when I am engaged in patient care and she is sitting right in front of the call system and could just pick up the reciever and ask what they need.

And it's not just a "matter of perspective" when this nurse denigrates agency nurses as being underqualified and overpaid.

Now, maybe some nurses find it tiresome to hear about nurses who complain about their assignments. But how would you like to be the patient with an IV and an abdominal incision waiting 30 minutes to empty your bladder while a nurse sits reading at the nurses station? Or maybe the patient who has your jaw wired shut and is vomiting and needs the doctor called, meds, and your wires cut-which one nurse can't simultaneously do-while three nurses are sitting and chatting? Or perhaps you would like to be the 36 week pregnant patient with diabetes and hypertension who is going into labor on POSTPARTUM with a nurse who has 7 other patients because the labor and delivery nurse with NO PATIENTS has refused to take you and is sleeping at her desk????

No, it's not all nurses or all hospitals-but it is NOT "just a matter of perspective" that some staff nurses dump on the agency nurses. And that you've got to speak up for your own liscence and patient safety.

I am currently working with two exceptional crews and my experience with them is as others have noted here. I have been accepted as "One of the Crew", so much so that one of the facilities that has never offered a Contract to any nurse, is considering an offer to me, to work a contracted assignment. I am also Contracted at the other facility, the beauty of this dual assignment is that it will be through one agency and all hours over thirty-six will be payed to me as overtime. Add to this that I have full healthcare coverage, completion bonuses, and other bonus clauses and you may see some of the benefits of my work ethics, and expertise. Of course it helps greatly that there is a huge shortage of nurses. I am on the last turn of my career, heading for the finish line, and I can see retirement just around the bend, it is nice to know I will be a much needed commodity until that day rolls around :-)

I RECENTLY LEFT A MANAGEMENT POSITION AND HAVE STARTED WORKING FOR AN AGENCY WHO STAFFS MANY OF THE 221 FACILITIES IN RHODE ISLAND. I WAS DUMPED ON ONCE AND REFUSE TO RETURN TO THAT FACILITY. I EXPECT TO BE TREATED WITH THE SAME RESPECT THAT I WOULD GIVE TO ANY NURSE WHO COMES TO HELP. 34 YEARS OF NURSING HAVE LEFT ME WITH ENOUGH WISDOM TO SPEAK UP AND REFUSE TO BE TREATED OTHER THAN 100%!

That's how it works out. The hospitals and staff members who are rude to agency nurses or who dump work eventually have a heavier work load themselves because no one wants to work with them. They have to keep retraining new agency or staff nurses to fill those positions or there is simply no one who will come in at all.

I never turn down assigments and renew contracts where I am treated with respect and given an even patient load. I will specifically even refuse to work with certain individuals.

I have that control over my own life as an agency nurse. Those who choose to resent me for having that type of control over my own life rather than to treat me as an equal will just have to live in their own little private h*ll of being chronically understaffed.