Deletion of Head Nurses and Supervisors

I am just curious about the opinion of Nurses from ascross the country about their feelings on the issue of health centers deleting the head nurse and supervisor positions.

I work in a Health center that has recently decided to do this. We are looking at having 128 hours of 168 hour week not covered by a person in charge. As a group we have banded together and our union is fighting for us as well. We have 4000 signatures on a petition against the deletion. Our community is approx 5000 people. Our hospital is a major center for outlying communities and we are always flying people in from further north. Another point in this is that the 4 head nurse positons will be replaced with 8 paper pushers. The 3 supervisors will not be replaced. Does this make sense. We already have more administration than hands on nurses. It is a very frustrating situation. We are losing 7 hands on nurses.

A big reason I came to this hospital as a new grad was the support it had for it's new nurses. There is always an experienced nurse there to help you. If this takes place we will lose more than these 7 positons. Right now 20 of our nurses are preparing for early retirment due to what is taking place, some of these nurses have over 30 years experience. Other Regional Health Authorities have done this and in the end they have had to reverse it becasue their wards fell apart. In one situation a new grad who had never set foot in an OR was running that department. Also there was a EMT who was running a busy medical ward. The new nurse managers are not required to be nurses.

I would really appreciate anyone's opinion on this pro or con. Thanx