Anyone ever heard of a policy like this??

[martin738]

The hospital I work at has a policy for nurses that if you call in sick on a weekend that you have to make it up. For example, if you call in on saturday they automatically put you on for the next saturday. But your floor manager can put you on another day if needed more. We have had people who were actually admitted into the hospital on a weekend they were to work and were put on for the next weekend. So we're only allowed to get sick from Monday through Thursday.

[weezyljm]

what union? Where? Am trying to find a nursing union!

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

One time I had an emergency laparotomy and a Head Nurse and Nursing Director came in that afternoon (it was a Friday I seem to recall) and asked if I could work the next 2 days....."you wouldn't have to really work just be in charge...." I was in the hospital float pool and set days to work were T W Th. No weekends, no bennies either.

The reason I was in that hosp as a patient instead of the one my surgeon preferred, is that I'd passed out while at work there from the pain of a ruptured huge ovarian cyst.

Ok I had IV's probably needed blood, on PCA........anybody guess what my answer was?

[rngolfer53]

People have a right to call in (for whatever reason) I think that policy is total BS. If you had a union, I don't think they'd put up with it. This is just another one of those ways that management, since they can't be creative enough to come up with incentives for working weekends, tries to bully nurses. The hospital can run just fine without them (ps. how many weekends do they work?), but a hospital can't run without us.

And this is a good example of why nursing is often not treated as a profession. Perhaps the writer didn't mean it to come across the way it was written.

All the same, too many nurses are all too willing to leave their colleagues working short, leaving Pts ultimately in the lurch. Why? Because something else seems more attractive that day.

There are legitimate reasons to take unscheduled time off, but "whatever" isn't one of them.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

We don't have this policy where I work now, but we did at my previous hospital. I thought it was fine.

Tait

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

We have a policy like that too. All staff are required to do at least every other weekend, and (I was told) because people were taking too many days off on the weekends they were supposed to work, they wanted to put a stop to it and implemented the policy. I can understand where they are coming from, though I don't think it's fair for them to automatically schedule someone for the following weekend--at least let the person have some input as to what day(s) they'll make up.

Also, if we call out sick on a weekend, we have to produce a doctor's note...and they will ask for it to be faxed in if you're going to be out for a few days. Even with a sick note, they'll still press you to make it up the next weekend.

I can't say I'm too bothered by the policy since my regular schedule includes shifts every weekend. So if I miss one, I'm already down for the following weekend. Having to fax in sick notes irks me a bit though.

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

We have such a policy. Generally the only nurses or cnas who are targeted are the ones who have w/e sickness. Even then the call ins have to be excessive.