Can you believe this???

Nurses General Nursing

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I am a home health nurse. On Tuesday after I finished seeing my pts I started to feel sick to my stomach and could not figure out why. Well Wednesday I went to work saw three of my five pts and was overcome by nausea and a pounding headache (stomach virus!!) I called my boss and told her that I had gotten sick in the field and needed to go home, no problem. I talked to here later that afternoon and told her I would not be able to work on Thursday, the toliet had become my new best friend. Today I tried to get up and get dressed to go to work well that did not work for my new bff (mr toliet) just would not let me go. Now I am on call this week end and told my boss I would still try to do my call. I get a call from the director this afternoon, not to see how I am doing but to make sure I'm still going to do my call, I said yes and she says yeah because to get out of call we would need a doctor's excuse!! What!!! At first it didn't bother me, but as I starting thinking I was like thanks for calling to check on me I only been in the bathroom for the last two days!! Anyway just needed to vent.

People can be such jerks. My mother is a nurse, and when my grandfather died, she told her nurse manager that she had to take time off to grieve, plan and attend his funeral, and settle things with his estate. He lived in a different state. Well, when she told her nurse manager that she would be traveling to GA to take care of things, her nurse manager responded, "Oh, he lived in GA. Well, do you really need to take THAT many days (I think she asked for a week or two)? Were you and your dad even close since he lived in GA, and you live here?" My mom gave her an ear full and quit. Seriously, what kind of person says "were you and your dad even close?" instead of, "I'm sorry your dad died."

Anyway, I'm really sorry that you have been sick and that your nurse manager is so uncaring. I guess some of them don't realize that we are all human and occassionally get ill or have problems to deal with. I hope you are feeling better.

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

ask her to check infection cotraol manual re infectious diarrhea and needing to report callouts such as this mc/jcaho standards. since frequent flyer to my doctor, they'ed write note for me...check with yours.

It's not just our profession. My husband worked at Wal-Mart and was sick (and contagious) with a doctor's excuse, and they counted his absence as "unexcused" so he had to use PTO not sick pay.

My friend works at a tech support company, and she said it was the same there. Here's a twist - because of the family leave act, if you say your child is sick, that's an excused absence.

Sometimes the system is "logic-challenged."

Specializes in Case Management, Home Health, UM.
It's not just our profession. My husband worked at Wal-Mart and was sick (and contagious) with a doctor's excuse, and they counted his absence as "unexcused" so he had to use PTO not sick pay

No wonder they are being sued for multiple violations of the Labor Law. :trout:

My son, DIL and his MIL used to work at Wal-Mart, and they were treated like dirt. MIL had been working for them for ten years, when her manager began physically abusing her. Needless to say, she quit.

Specializes in ER, ICU, Nurse Manager.

Thanks for all the well wishes. I am starting to feel a little better, just weak from having the diarrhea and vomiting and not eating much as a result. Well I have 2 visits for Saturday and 1 visit and an IV admission for Sunday. Better get cracking with that.

when i read all these posts all i can think about ---- is there any wonder why there is a nursing shortage, !!! why are we treated like this, a little bit of compassion goes a long way, i know i go to work every day, don't ask for much, try to be good/helpful to all my co-workers in hopes that i will be treated the same if i need something....what is wrong with people! some managers just don't want to "get their hands dirty "......hope everyone is doing OK this weekend, (esp if you are working, on-call etc)

For some reason, nursing seems to be one of the worst fields as far as supervisors not adhering to federal laws concerning employment. Most seem to have no clue when they are breaking laws and putting the company they work for at risk for lawsuits, fines, etc. One would think that a place of employment would educate the people who represent their names better than that. I wonder if they are with the thought pattern that these nurses went to college so they should at least have minimum knowledge of employment rules. Not so. It would take all of a couple of hours to read through the rules/laws to get a basic understanding but there are very few who take the initiative.

Oh....don't get me started!!

When my father passed away about 10 years ago, the manager I worked with at the time was a realllll compassionate one....

I called her as soon as I found out the news...which happened to be on a Sunday....I called her at home....

Her first words were: "you have three days to grieve".

Not, "oh I am sorry....is there anything I can do to help???"

My father was my rock....my best friend....and now here I am crying over the phone to a manager who could only focus on hospital policy.....

My father had the courtesy to die when I had the next three days off....so my grief time allowed me to get home and back before my next schedule work day after my 3 grief days....

I wonder what makes these managers tick sometimes....it's like they fall out of a stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down!

I am sorry you were so sick.

It's pretty hard to see your patients and then spend the day launching in between....

Here we are....walking to the ends of the earth for our patients, but unwilling to see how much we need to bear one another up when one of us is sick, or grieving....

I hope you are on the mend....

Blessings. CRNI

I wonder if they sometimes think people are calling up with yet another excuse to be off work. It sounds sick but I know a nurse who used to call in with things like my son has been in a car accident and is deathly ill. Even though that is sick some people do that.

i know when i was in school, it was drilled into our heads to never, ever call in sick.

and so, i think many of us have been inadvertently brainwashed into martyrdom.

it took me a few yrs before i finally woke up and called in when i was truly sick.

i even learned to appreciate the rare mental health day.

between reading threads that "nurses are compassionate" and reading the abuses in this thread, i'm more inclined than ever to plead that nsg change its' image.

i'm sick to death of everyone thinking that we can be dumped on my colleagues, doctors, administration, families and pts.

actually, i can handle the pts and families.

it's time to say "no more".

leslie

Oh....don't get me started!!

When my father passed away about 10 years ago, the manager I worked with at the time was a realllll compassionate one....

I called her as soon as I found out the news...which happened to be on a Sunday....I called her at home....

Her first words were: "you have three days to grieve".

Not, "oh I am sorry....is there anything I can do to help???"

My father was my rock....my best friend....and now here I am crying over the phone to a manager who could only focus on hospital policy.....

My father had the courtesy to die when I had the next three days off....so my grief time allowed me to get home and back before my next schedule work day after my 3 grief days....

:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire

I would have replied, "You have 3 days to find a new nurse."

Dammit that makes me angry. But I'm not surprised. What does surprise me is when a manager actually cares about the health and well-being of her employees.

My manager-from-hell (the one who drove me out of the hospital and into travel nursing) refused to allow me to be off for a colonoscopy and surgery following a bowel perforation. I was a patient on our floor for a week, she KNEW I wasn't "faking". My doc wanted me to have those procedures following a course of abx and giving the perforated area time to heal. I thought he was going to have a stroke when I told him I'd been threatened with termination if I were to schedule these before November of the following year (11 months).

Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Rachel,

I'm sorry this is happening to you, maybe when they know you better they won't be so suspicious about needing time off. I hate to say it, but there are folks in my department who call off with bogus stuff, we all know who is for real and who isn't.

On a positive note, there are compassionate managers and coworkers out there. When my dh was dx'd with CA, basically terminal, I had 4 1/2 months off, and my coworkers donated enough sick leave on top of my own, so that I could stay home and take care of him the whole time while getting paid. My (then) manager gave me 40 hours herself. HR made sure all the family leave paperwork got done so there were no hassles there. When it was time to go back, they eased me in a short 4 hour shifts to help my kids get used to me being gone. Bunch of hospital folks came to the funeral. :redbeathe

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