Nursing Ethics: About The Weather - Page 3

And because the schools were closed, both my daycares were closed. My husband & I work at the same place so we took turns staying home with the kiddos.

I was always that person that made it in no-matter-what. But since having children, if their care providers are closed, one of us has no choice but to stay home.

"Roads close. If your response is "you should have come to work a day early and slept here," you'd better be paying me enough to justify it. It is not professional to work for free."

But it is expected by many organizations. I have worked for orgs that gave staff meals and a "per diem" for sleeping at the hospital in the event of bad weather and I have worked for those that have fired nurses for not showing up with 24+ inches of snow on the streets and even the snowplow drivers stayed home in bed!

Patients need care, but they need living, breathing nurses to perform that care.

This one hits fairly close to home for me. In February this year, the nursing home I worked at was evacuated due to predicted 18m storm surges due to cyclone Yasi. I was at the nursing home for the actual evacuation on the Tuesday and I was meant to work the Thursday am but I was unable to get in as it was just too dangerous to drive. I texted my boss at midnight to say that I didn't think it would be safe for me to get there. I was then asked that afternoon to come in and work a 24 hour shift by head office in Brisbane, they decided to exempt me though due to the fact that I had an 11 month old who was still being breastfed and I'd lost all of my expressed milk from the power failure so I would have needed to bring him with me. If we'd had to evacuate all the residents to Brisbane though which we would have done if the nursing home had been destroyed I had informed them that I was able to go to Brisbane to help care for them as I had family down there to look after them. I do agree though that some people call out due to the weather at the drop of a hat.

This one is a hard one for me I live in the lowlands of Washington state and when it snows here the whole Sound goes into panic mode and the people wreck and crash in a inch of snow. I kid you not. I once lived in a small town called Roy and drove to work in Puyallup with 507 iced over and was only 20 minutes late to work. There were people I worked with who lived in Puyallup who didnt come in. I lived in Oklahoma at one time and I made it in to work during an ice storm then I got to stay there fror 16 hours straight. I went home that night and because I wasnt scheduled to work I didnt come in the next day the DNS ended up working and she quit. I firmly believe if it is safe I go but I am not killing my car or myself to get to work if the roads aren't cleared. I am obligated to show up for my shifts and do but it is not worth dying for when no one else you work with would do it for you. I guess that is where the rub is.

I don't agree. This was an issue for a nurse in D.C. following the blizzard that dumped 3 feet of snow there one day last year. How in the hell was she supposed to get to work in 3 feet of snow? Granted, this was an extreme case, but the hospital did fire this nurse, but she did sue and got her job back with back pay. There are just some cases where the weather truly is just too bad for someone to get to their job. And it is a JOB - it is not worth risking your life, and if the conditions are 3 feet of snow, it is life-threatening.

I agree that when you take a job it is your responsibility to try to get to work when possible. I do not agree that I am of more use to my patients dead than missing one shift and then being back at work alive and well. We passed nursing school and NCLEX by using good judgement. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our patients.

That said, if the county closes the road while I am sleeping because of an ice storm, there is no way anyone in their right mind is going to expect me to be out sliding around to try to get to work. The people who are at work have no business trying to get home. So there you have it. Some nurses work a double shift to stay safe, some stay home to be safe. Patients are taken care of. I have stayed to work a double because of road conditions just as many times as I have missed a shift .

If you are a nurse you must consider the patients needs in front of your own

oh my....thats a whoooooooooole other thread!

I have lived in all types of climates in my life. I have always prepared myself for transportation and daily needs in every climate I have lived. In Maine where at one point it snows every day I had no problem getting to work and neither did the other people on staff with me. People who have problems are people who have problems with life in general. There are always huge storms but in this day and time we have sufficent time to prepare. During many of the hurricane periods in Louisiana we were allowed to bring our families and pets to live out the storm with us in the hospital. There may be some extreme emergency that causes us to miss work but these are rare. Family personal emergencys are of course a totally different story.

Great post. Well said!!