[NRSKarenRN]

Nurses fired or suspended for not working during Hurricane Frances
AP/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 9, 2004


ORMOND BEACH -- A hospital has fired or suspended about 25 nurses for not working during Hurricane Frances, hospital officials said.

Nurses at Florida Hospital-Ormond Memorial were fired for not calling in, not showing up or refusing to work, while others were suspended for not completing a shift or coming late, said hospital spokeswoman Desiree Paradis-Warner.

She said critical care employees are required to work during a disaster under hospital policy.

"It's in each employee's job description," Paradis-Warner said. "We have to have caregivers here . ... patient safety is our No. 1 priority."

As the hurricane approached, nurses were advised to work their shifts, she said. The hospital provided shelter for working employees and their families.
Frances made landfall early Sunday about 150 miles south of Ormond Beach, causing an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion in insured damages across the state and leaving at least 15 Floridians dead.

Other hospitals said none of their employees were fired or suspended for staffing problems during the hurricane.

"There were relatively few nursing team members who were unable to come in for their shifts," said John E. Evans, spokesman for Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach. "And those were able to notify us, in most cases, of good reasons not to make it, such as storm damage they needed to address."

[oramar]

During a disaster roads can be washed out, phone lines can be down. Child care arrangments can fall apart. People can be involved in moving friends and families out of the area. You know once you are up north it is very difficult to get back into Florida during evacuations. They tend to make all the traffic lanes going in one direction on some highways. I think it is terrible to do such a thing and I don't know how they can do it being that all Florida hospitals have staffing problems. I would not be surprised if there were law suits by people who want to get their jobs back and I would not be surprised if they won.

[VickyRN]

Of course it's difficult to know what's really going on from just reading a few paragraphs in an article, but that hospital sounds very nurse unfriendly, inflexible, and authoritarian. I would NOT want to work for such an outfit.

[Blackcat99]

I'm glad I don't live in Florida. It would seem to me that it would be very dangerous to even drive to work in that kind of weather. I sure wouldn't risk my life to go to my job.

[mattsmom81]

I agree this is over the top and I hope these nurses visit attorneys for unfair termination. Maybe even go to the press after this has blown over (no pun intended)

God bless Floridians who are dealing with the worst Mother Nature has to offer this summer...stay safe down there.

[Angie O'Plasty, RN]

Florida's an at-will state, so the hospitals will get away with it. However, I don't feel it's any loss to any of those nurses; there are plenty of good jobs here.

But I feel that there's a larger issue here. Firemen, policemen, and first responders made public announcements to the effect that they refused to respond when hurricane winds reached 40 mph, citing safety as the reason.

However, nurses were required to report to hospitals that were located in evacuation zones and that did not plan on evacuating.

I didn't report for Charley. I evacuated with my family, as we were legally ordered to. In Florida, you can be arrested for not complying with an evacuation order (not that they'd have anywhere to put you if they did. )

I would've gladly evac'd to the hospital, but it turned out that the hospital was in an evac zone, too. In fact, only one of eight hospitals in evacuation zones actually did evacuate for Charley.

I also would've reported for duty if the hospital itself needed to evacuate. However, the prospect of trying to evacuate acutely ill patients in the midst of 100-mile-an-hour winds doesn't just scare me; it infuriates me that most of our county's current hurricane policy does little to address the problem that the Punta Gorda and Charlotte hospitals faced.

I simply don't agree with the notion that nurses have to put their lives on the line to get to a hospital to care for patients who should be evacuated from the building in the first place, therefore needlessly putting even more lives at risk.

While I didn't get fired, someone hunted up an old policy that no one ever heard of before, so those who didn't report for work (which could've turned into a 48-hour shift
without hurricane pay) were denied paid-time-off hours.

And I'd do it all over again, too.

[directcare4me]

Originally Posted by Angie O'Plasty, RN

Florida's an at-will state, so the hospitals will get away with it. However, I don't feel it's any loss to any of those nurses; there are plenty of good jobs here.

But I feel that there's a larger issue here. Firemen, policemen, and first responders made public announcements to the effect that they refused to respond when hurricane winds reached 40 mph, citing safety as the reason.

However, nurses were required to report to hospitals that were located in evacuation zones and that did not plan on evacuating.

I didn't report for Charley. I evacuated with my family, as we were legally ordered to. In Florida, you can be arrested for not complying with an evacuation order (not that they'd have anywhere to put you if they did. )

I would've gladly evac'd to the hospital, but it turned out that the hospital was in an evac zone, too. In fact, only one of eight hospitals in evacuation zones actually did evacuate for Charley.

I also would've reported for duty if the hospital itself needed to evacuate. However, the prospect of trying to evacuate acutely ill patients in the midst of 100-mile-an-hour winds doesn't just scare me; it infuriates me that most of our county's current hurricane policy does little to address the problem that the Punta Gorda and Charlotte hospitals faced.

I simply don't agree with the notion that nurses have to put their lives on the line to get to a hospital to care for patients who should be evacuated from the building in the first place, therefore needlessly putting even more lives at risk.

While I didn't get fired, someone hunted up an old policy that no one ever heard of before, so those who didn't report for work (which could've turned into a 48-hour shift
without hurricane pay) were denied paid-time-off hours.

And I'd do it all over again, too.

Good for you! While I don't live in Florida, I have often wondered how this situation worked down there. I agree with you, no job is worth seriously risking one's life for. We owe it to our families to keep ourselves safe.

[RNKittyKat]

When I received a call from my DON to come in to work my Saturday night shift, I made a very difficult decision to decline. It was a regularly scheduled shift. The winds picked up very early Saturday morning. The last message I had was to come in "after the storm calmed". When I got called in on Saturday, I wasn't expecting it. The winds were already quite high. Transformers were exploding and you could hear the sound of tree limbs and even trunks cracking. The power had already been lost the day before.

I knew this would place a difficult burden on the employees that would work the shift so I found myself considering it. Most of them had spent the previous night at the hospital. My little grand daughter was terribly frightened that her "nana would get dead" which spoke to the more sensible part of me. Other family members were telling me it would be foolish to drive in that weather. I could hear the disappointment on my DON's voice when I told her I did not feel safe driving to the hospital. She never threatened me with my job though naturally I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

When it was all over, I volunteered to work extra shifts to help in the effort to relieve tired, overworked nursing staff. The patient census was nearly triple with holding areas created all over the place.

It is sad that this hospital chose this route.

[Angie O'Plasty, RN]

Other family members were telling me it would be foolish to drive in that weather.

Exactly. Yet when I went to work the next scheduled day, some people tried to make me feel guilty over this.

When it was all over, I volunteered to work extra shifts to help in the effort to relieve tired, overworked nursing staff.

Same here, RNKitty. We still have some staff just getting power and phones back after the storm, too. To me, coming to work under those conditions is nothing short of heroic.

Such a shame there's always that double standard to work against us nurses, isn't it?

[llg]

My hospital (not in Florida) encourages people to plan ahead so that no one has to travel during the worst weather. Extra staff is asked to come in BEFORE the weather gets dangerous. There are then enough people already in the hospital when the hurricane (or ice storm or whatever) hits to relieve each other on a reasonable schedule. That way no one group of staff members has to work unreasonable hours without relieve during an emergency.

Why didn't those Florida hospitals take similar steps to assure a safe level of staff would be in the building before it got really bad?

llg