When the hospital cancels you for a shift... - Page 5

So far, we've avoided serious low census this year, but last year, during the slump, if 9 nurses would be scheduled, 5 or sometimes 6 would be on call. Short of a mass casualty
situation... really? You are really going to keep 6 of us on the hook all night? Really? Our policy has no limit on how many on-call shifts we might have per pay period. We're on call for the first eight hours of the shift. After that, we don't have to answer the phone.

As I said, it hasn't been an issue lately. But it reeks to have your PTO sucked up that way. Some of us would have had a shot at picking up some agency work if they hadn't been on call.

When I worked per diem this was sometimes an issue. The hospital would call me off for low census, then if they suddenly started getting slammed with admissions they would want me to come in on short notice. I was not on call and they weren't paying me to hang by the phone. I always told them that since they called me off, I had made another commitment. I never had any pushback from it, and they never reduced my hours.

My hospital has either a stand-by or cancel option for when census is low.

Being cancelled means you're totally off. Stand-by means they can call you at any time up until 3 am/pm (depending on your shift) if they need you... even 30 minutes after they put you on stand-by. If called in, you have to be given at least 4 hours of work. And we get on-call pay... I think it's something like $4.50/hr.

One good thing came of a call-off once. I was called off for my hospital shift, so I went to dinner with my family. While we were waiting for a table I sat down with $5 in front of a slot machine (since that is an option here) and played a little to kill time. I won $250, which was more than I would have made for my shift at the hospital - and since it was below the $1,200 threshhold for filling out an IRS form for winnings, it was also tax free. My nurse manager called to apologize, saying that I should not have been called off. I told her it was fine, because I came out ahead anyway.

At our hospital, they use the term "flex" when they cancel someone. You are "flexed off" for the first 4 hours if they think they may need you later, the whole shift if several people are being cancelled. So, if you start at 7 and they do not call you by 11, you are free for the rest of the day. You do not receive any compensation, unless you use your PTO. It rarely happens, they are much more likely to call you every morning to see if you can come in extra than they are to cancel your shift.