Any Spokane nurses???

lindarn · Jun 8, 2015

I have lived in Spokane for 25 miserable years. No, Spokane is NOT nurse friendly.

Washington is not a right to work state, but Idaho, next door, is. Specifically, North Idaho.

Spokane has a lower cost of living than Seattle/Tacoma, but its pay scale is lower than it should be.

The main problem Spokane, had always had, is that it has no big industry, besides health care. Health Care is Spokane's biggest industry. Health care has been built big here because of that.

Other than health care, and government jobs, because of Fairchild AFB, private industry jobs are scarce. The two main health care systems here, Providence, and Community Health, are the two health care systems to get a job. Providence has two hospitals here, Sacred Heart, the biggest, and Holy Family, the smaller one, and Community Health has Deaconess (comparable to Sacred Heart), and Valley Hospital

Community Health bought out Empire Health, and is a for profit system. The nurses had finally voted in 1199 a few years ago, did not get a good contract, the voted them out after only a couple of years. The rest of the hospital unionized when Empire Health was put up for sale, and they remain unionized.

In other words, if the pickings are slim here in Spokane. Even though Sacred Heart and Holy Family remain unionized with Washington State Nurses Association, the union is very weak. Nurses here in Spokane, are what I call, "martyr marys". If you know what I mean, Yes, they have a union, but NO we really don't want to flex our muscle, and look to, "pushy". If you know what i mean.

The VA here is unionized, and if I were looking for a job, I would look there. The moral of the story is that Spokane nurses are treated like, $h!t.

The Tricities are of Washington, (the south central area- Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco), would also be a better choice. Hospitals there are unionized with WSNA.

My point is, like I said, Washington is NOT a right to work state, but Idaho is. Eastern Washington is close enough to North Idaho, and has always had a very weak economy, in terms of good paying jobs, that the stench of North Idaho, rubs off on Eastern Washington. We also have four schools of nursing in Eastern Washington, and several other ADN programs around the state, add in University of Washington and PLU in Seattle, Gonzaga here in Spokane, and there is a glut of nursing schools. Washington has never had a nursing shortage, and it has only gotten worse, since they have increased the numbers accepted to the schools. Don't forget the Idaho nursing schools as well. North Idaho College has an ADN program (they are only 60 miles from Spokane), they have other ADN programs around the state, and I and sure the BSU, has BSN programs as well.

It is a perfect storm of nursing glut.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.