sick days with pay???

[DKJW]

Hi to everyone! I work in a private non-profit hospital that employs roughly 700 nurses. The hospital gives us 80 hours of sick time with pay per year with accrual of up to 240 hours. In the past, a nurse has been given a warning when she makes her 7th call-in and call-in's with a doctor's excuse have been honored and considered an "excused absence". Just recently, they have decided to change things up. Now, they do not accept doctor's excuses anymore and at your 4th call-in, you are warned, and on the 5th, you are suspended for three days without pay! And it is three days at their discretion. We have always had the weekend call-in policy that says that a call-in one's weekend to work results in your working the next weekend you are off. The suspension policy has caused quite an uproar in our facility. It appears that all 700 of us are being punished for the multiple call-ins of a few!

We have no nurses union - that's pretty much the way it is in the South, so we don't have any recourse. When asked about the doctor's excuse thing, administration's response was "Any nurse can get a doctor's excuse!" That is totally untrue! Any comments?

[angelaADSN]

To think I was griping about my 190 hours of sick time I have accumulated and will never get to use! That is pretty tough. I live in Clarksdale. If we call in we have to have a doctors excuse in order to get paid for sick time. If we are sick longer than 3 days we have to take a LOA. Our policy says if we call in more than 3 days a year we will get 3 days suspension at their discretion but it is not in use because we have a guy call in 2 times a week or so. We are so short staff, they can't afford to fire. What hacks me off is if I am sick which is rare I don't get paid for it unles I go pay a doc 40 bucks for an excuse. I accumulate more sick time than vacation time. Know why, because they try not to let you use it.. I heard at some places they pay you your sick time when you leave the hospital. Not at ours.