[december]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5070940.html

My hospital has decreased it's use of travelers greatly in the last year. It also has sent nurses notices that our pay is commensurate with the region and there will be no raise this year. (Our last across the board raise was three years ago.) I live in the Albany, NY region, where suit has been filed by nursing associations for area hospitals price-fixing our wages. This is also a magnet hospital.

For the first time, last week the night shift came on to the ICU and two nurses had to accept a caseload of three patients each. One of the nurses was taking on two ICU patients and a stepdown patient.

So, no traveling staff, no raises and increase caseloads. Very troublesome. Capitalism is not alive for us.

[oneLoneNurse]

Originally Posted by december

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5070940.html

My hospital has decreased it's use of travelers greatly in the last year. It also has sent nurses notices that our pay is commensurate with the region and there will be no raise this year. (Our last across the board raise was three years ago.) I live in the Albany, NY region, where suit has been filed by nursing associations for area hospitals price-fixing our wages. This is also a magnet hospital.

For the first time, last week the night shift came on to the ICU and two nurses had to accept a caseload of three patients each. One of the nurses was taking on two ICU patients and a stepdown patient.

So, no traveling staff, no raises and increase caseloads. Very troublesome. Capitalism is not alive for us.

I don't understand how they can remain competitive when it comes to recruiting.

[reesern63]

Originally Posted by december

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5070940.html

My hospital has decreased it's use of travelers greatly in the last year. It also has sent nurses notices that our pay is commensurate with the region and there will be no raise this year. (Our last across the board raise was three years ago.) I live in the Albany, NY region, where suit has been filed by nursing associations for area hospitals price-fixing our wages. This is also a magnet hospital.

For the first time, last week the night shift came on to the ICU and two nurses had to accept a caseload of three patients each. One of the nurses was taking on two ICU patients and a stepdown patient.

So, no traveling staff, no raises and increase caseloads. Very troublesome. Capitalism is not alive for us.

I'm sorry to hear that. Magnet is no guarantee of good working conditions. It's more a marketing tool for hospitals than anything else.
Those are unsafe caseloads.

[oramar]

It sounds as if they are conspiring to hold down wages. You wonder if there isn't a tipping point where they abuse and abuse and one morning they wake up and there is no staff. Will wages shoot up then or will they bring in nurses from other countries and deskill. Want to place bets on what is going to happen?

[lindarn]

Originally Posted by oramar

It sounds as if they are conspiring to hold down wages. You wonder if there isn't a tipping point where they abuse and abuse and one morning they wake up and there is no staff. Will wages shoot up then or will they bring in nurses from other countries and deskill. Want to place bets on what is going to happen?

I will say it again- there are too many nurses in this country. Too many nurses being chruned out every six months from ABC Community College. Hospitals count on nurses getting burned out and leaving after 2- 3 years. Then they can bring in another group of new grads and pay them several dollars less than they are paying you.

It never seems to amaze me that no one can connect the dots. They ARE CONSPIRING TO KEEP WAGES DOWN. They also conspire to not pay nurses with BSNs more money because they know if WE ALL HAD THE SAME ENTRY INTO PRACTICE, AND IT TOOK US FOUR YEARS TO GRADUATE, THEY WOULD HAVE TO WORK ON THAT FOUR LETTER WORD- RETENTION, AND PAY HIGHER WAGES, IMPROVE BENEFITS, AND STAFFING RATIOS.

But they know that nurses are doomed from the time they enter nursing school. They are brainwashed into not believing that are profession is valuable, and a major factor in patient safety, and positive patient outcomes. We are beaten into submission.

They are terrified of nurses finally coming together and defying the powers that be. And taking control of our profession. Imagine- 2 million nurses standing up and saying NO MORE!! And actually billing for our services, like other health care professsionals. Right now our professional nursing services are rolled into the room rate, housekeeping, and the complimentary roll of toilet paper.

That is the way hospital management, and the public sees us, and that is the way they want it to stay.

But, as I said, it is nothing more that a pipe dream.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington

[sonnyluv]

Originally Posted by oneLoneNurse

I don't understand how they can remain competitive when it comes to recruiting.

They don't!! This post is like, my worst nightmare. CEO's figure out that the vast majority of nurses will take whatever is given to them because they are afraid of being labeled a "whiner" or a "troublemaker". No raise, no travelers, and now 3 pt load in the ICU?

CEO's don't give a rats bottom about recruitment. Why should they? Less nurses=more money.
And magnet status is becoming more and more of a joke every year. How is it possible in 2007 that nurses salaries are remaining stagnant? The average American consumer, the patient, has no clue that the care they recieve in their fancy logo'd, nice looking lobby hospital is a sham, andd that their care is utter crap due to overstaffing and crew burnout.

[GoLytely]

I am sick of hearing there is a nursing shortage.

Where is it?

Meanwhile, these schools keep churning out nurses by the busload, sometimes graduating two classes a year. It's like a spigot and they don't know when to turn it off.

Hospital management loves high turnover. High turnover means they can look forward to the next group of schmucks coming in and by the time they get tired of it next year the next group of schmucks will be graduating. I know of a hospital where the nursing school is about 100 ft away. And people say, look at the high turnover, they can't keep nurses, there is a shortage.

No, there isn't. There is such a surplus of nurses that a nurse with 6 yrs. experience (me) can't get a job because they have a fresh bunch of naieve babies waiting to come in. They have plenty to choose from.

[sistasoul]

I don' t think there is a shortage either. Nurse are not willing to work bedside because of poor conditions. They all leave and do non-bedside types of nursing. On my unit I have seen two nurses leave for the OR, another leave for the cardiology intervention unit (put in pacemakers, etc Mod -thru Friday job), one is travel nursing- primarily ER, and another is going to be an LNA instructor. I am a student and when I graduate in 2008 I also do not plan to be at the bedside long term. It is too chaotic which makes for an unsafe environment. Just my 2 cents.

[loricatus]

Sounds like it is time to call the NYSNA and ask for union reps to come by and start talking union-bet things will change real quickly if the hospitals fear they are going to be unionized. It wouldn't hurt, either, just to start the rumors going that nurses are thinking of having a union come in to relieve the price fixing.

[ocankhe]

Not all hospitals behave the way described in some of the above posts. Some, albeit a minority, realize that in the long run high turnover is more expensive then retention.
I agree and have been saying for decades that nursing care has to be unbundled from room and board before the true economic value of Nursing can be appreciated. This is a difficult thing to do but is beginning to slowly evolve.
Changes in the philosophy of Medicare reimbursements will also begin to improve the perception of the economic value of nursing. When hospitals are no longer going to get reimbursed for the care of preventable complications and are precluded from going after the patient for these costs, they will see the economic benefit of proper staffing ratios and retention of skilled professional staff. Right now the economic incentives favor limiting staffing and hiring the less expirenced. Those institutions that persist in practices will face increasing financial problems that will be a threat to their survival.