My birthing unit is suddenly closing. There are 75 nurses on my unit and most of us found out by reading the paper :angryfire . Actually my sister called me from work (she works at same hospital, different unit) and told me. No advance notice, not one member of management called anyone to tell them. There were several meetings the next 2 days to discuss our options... there was very little info and a whole lot of fluff. "we are so sorry how everyone found out>>>> blah, blah , blah." The hospital is going to open a bariatric surgical service on our unit and we were told we would be "shining stars" if we stayed on and worked there :angryfire !! I am on the fence as to what to do. There are plenty of other floors to work on, maybe ICU or ER? All of the regional affiliated hospitals have a few OB jobs, and with seniority I might get one. In the meeting they talked and talked about incentives and severance packages. OK, what are the incentives? "we don't have any numbers." Followed by "come next week and tell us what you want to do" Well, how can we know without all of the info. Also to go to a regional hospital ( and stick with OB) we take a pay cut. Funny thing, they just opened a NICU a couple of years ago, spent millions I am sure. The hospital swears that it is staying open and they will transfer sick babies in. We were level 3. When asked about separating moms, they said that they would tranfer moms also!?! Can you imagine being PP mom sharing a room with bariatric patient?
I am really thinking about ICU or ER. Any of you with experience there? Do you think it would be a difficult transition?