Rant About On Call

I think you're absolutely right. If it all hits the fan during that 24-hour period everyone is endangered.

Been there,done that and I now absolutely refuse to work for a hospice where I have to do on call. when I interviewed with the hospice I currently work for the first question I asked them was if I had to do call. Fortunately we have a wonderful on call team of nurses who do just that. We also have a weekend team. On rare occasions we have had to cover just our own patients from 4:40pm - 8am. this was only when the on call nurse was ill and thre was no one to cover for her. I agree it is an unsafe situation. Are you an on call nurse or do you also have a case load? Bless you and sweet dreams.

I wouldn't consider doing on call unless that was what I was specifically hired for. You are working too much from what your posts say. Start looking.

Ive gone from a m-f 8h/day position to the weekend call position, it's friday 5p-monday 8am. good thing is one staff nurse is available for backup call from 8a-5p saturday & sunday so if i'm out all night, or get 2 problems at once, i have back up coverage.

The RN that had this position before worked a full time m-f job, and did this on the weekend. i've seen his call lots for the last 6 months and he only worked about 12-20 hours from friday through monday (for salary)...

i just had to get out of the monday-friday grind. i've had too many folks die in the last month and needed a change.

linda

I work 5 friday till 8 monday. There is a second nurse on during these hours as well. We have a census of 130+, and we are now going to hire a third nurse for the weekend as well. We typically have 2-4 admissions over the weekend and 1-4 deaths. We take turns receiving calls from the answering center, so that we can each rest, but still back each other up. I love my job and I don't think I could do case management. I love to solve the problem, give some hugs and get outta there. Sometimes the pager doesnt even go off much and I still get paid anyway. It's pretty good. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to carry a caseload during the week and have to participate in a call rotation where you are the primary call and not a backup. I wish you the best and hope you can find an organization that is realistic about staffing needs after hours.

Wow, thats tough working with a full caseload and 130 census. oncall hours like that would
kill me and I'd be out of hospice in a heartbeat. My job is F/T Mon-Fri, 30-40hrs week. We
take every other week on call. From Fri 5p to the next Fri 5p every other week. We always have
a backup nurse.
Our census is low, so we might get 4-5 calls during the week and weekends are sometimes a nightmare.
The only time I dont like it is when I get called at 2am to pronounce death. Its hard for me to
stay wake on the roads, I've had some dangerous moments where I've reconsidered this career.
If I didnt have to take call, this would be the best job I've ever had. My caseload is 12.

I should count my blessings. I've been feeling discouraged lately but after reading these posts I am pretty lucky. I work M-F 8-4:30; no weekends or holidays. No on call ( we have an on call team ). My average caseload is 12 and my travel is about 20-30 miles max. I have had to do on call with another hospice and it stressed me out so much I spent the day before worrying about it, couldn't sleep the night I had on call and was exhausted the next day. As I said in an earlier post, I won't work for a hospice where I have to do on call.o those of you out there who are overworked and stressed, please be safe.

This really gets me going..I've posted about this before. After almost 9 years, I think I've hit the wall. I work 40+ a week as case manager...take primary call 4 weekday nights and backup call 1 weekend day,then primary call 1 weekend night...... on a 6 week rotation. My census just hit 8, down from 12 last week. We sometimes must do our own admissions. A few weeks ago I worked all day, had a really wicked call that night...only got 2 hours fragmented sleep, then had to go back to work the next day and finally crashed at noon. Actually felt dizzy on my feet...it was horrible. On call we only get pay if we leave our homes...we could be on the phone all night and put in time for the necessary documentation.... and get only our beeper pay of $2.00/hr. Management won't consider any other options. We hear stuff like, well, way back when we used to have to cover blah, blah, blah territory...look how good you have it now. Well, back in the old days, if you took call and were tired the next day, they allowed time off. Now, if we work and are exhausted, we have to use our PTO time to take off. Really, I pray every day I can get up and do it again. I have loved my "Job" for years....but now just wondering how on earth will I survive. There's my rant....sorry.....For the rest of you, my thoughts and prayers are with you that you will be safe.