[deniseS]

Hi, I am in the process of possibly accepting a home health RN position.But one reason I am hesitant to accept..is that I am required to work one weekend a month--which is not a problem--But the week before no days off...and the week after only the Tuesday off(unless the sunday of the weekend you worked was slow)..then Tuesday not given off..I am hesistant to work 8 days in a row..and if the sunday was slow that would mean I would not get the tuesday off either--so 12 days in a row of work???? Is thsi type of scedule normal with home health nursing? please need advice...and info? Am I missing something? Thanks denise

[zhlk1]

This is pretty much how it is where I work. This is my weekend so by the time Friday gets here, it will be 12 days in a row. I have done 22 days in a row before when we were short on nurses and the weekends had to be covered.

[zhlk1]

I should have added that I still love my job and that even though I am tired and a tad bit irritable by the end of the 12 days, I still cant see myself doing anything else. Dont let this discourage you from accepting the position. It is a very rewarding job and a job where you will truly be appreciated by your patients. In my eyes, the positives of this job sure do out weigh the negatives. Good Luck.

[dgd123]

I currently work Monday through Friday and do triage call for 7 days (broken up)every 8 weeks. This is the best I have had it in home health. When I first started at this agency, we had to also do a Saturday and Sunday every month seeing regulary scheduled visits (8A-5P) and when we did this we were off the Thursday before the Saturday work day and the Tuesday after the Sunday work day. Some people liked having the day off and others would have preferred the overtime-can't please everyone. We got so busy and burnt out and spoke up and they hired a weekend RN initially then added a weekend LPN. I am very lucky that I have a progressive, open-minded management team. I have been on both sides-management and staff and have left 2 other agencies due to poor management at one and ethical issues at another.

I have done home care for 12 years and love it compared to hospital nursing.

Top 3 satisfiers for home health:

autonomy
one-on-one patient care
flexibility -- when my son was younger I could make my schedule revolve around activities at school, can do paperwork and phone calls at home, can run errands, etc. Keep in mind you need to subtract the time you are not working (unless on a break) and this may mean that if you took off 1 hour during the day, you will find yourself making up the time at night.

Hope this helps.

[TazziRN]

That's not how it works at my place. We have one nurse who only works weekends, so she does all the new opens and resumptions, takes care of on-call stuff during the day. The regular staff member on call for the night also works Saturday and takes care of the established pts who need to be seen on weekends also, like the daily dressing changes, IV pts, etc. The second nurse gets a day off the week before. The nurse for Sunday is the one who is on call for the following week and gets a day off in that week.

[Piscean]

At my job in a hospital med surge floor, I am what's called a .8 part-time with benefits. That's only 5 days in a 2 week pay period.

[caliotter3]

I was working seven days a week doing shift work on cases (8 or more hours) for a very long time in home health. My agencies offered me the flexibility to work as little or as much as I wanted depending on what they had available on their caseloads. The only way you can be in control of the flexibility (or nonflexibility) of your schedule is to make that understanding when you get hired. If you do not think the type of position you have been offered will be suitable for you, then you can ask them just to do shift care for certain cases or find another agency that is more willing to work with what you need for your schedule. Good luck. I hope you find something that works for you.