Big pay cut at Orlando Health, please help your fellow Nurses

[skyflight]

Please help your fellow Nurses in Orlando they are desperate. Orlando Health has spit in the face of Nursing. Please help them by signing a petition to stop this huge pay cut at change.org http://www.change.org/petitions/orlando-health-stop-nightshift-differential-cuts-to-nurses

"Orlando Health announced Monday, August 5 that they will be cutting the night and weekend shift differential to thousands of employees, across 8 area hospitals, to go in effect September 8. These cuts are more than 50% of the current rate and will result to each an individual loss upwards of $600/month, $7000-$15,000/year. A majority of the employees affected are Nurses, who are already notoriously underpaid and overworked. Corporate members are denying any request for negotiations, and gave less than 1-month notice for employees to acclimate to this substantial financial blow. The Orlando health corporation decided they want to decrease pay significantly, with no decrease in employee workload."

PLEASE! Your help is desperately needed.

[ButterflyRN90, ASN, RN]

I do believe there are just too many nurses. Period. This is another reason to make BSN the entry level to practice. The American Association of Respiratory Therapists just announced their plan to implement the the bachelors in respiratory therapy the entry level requirement by 2020. I think the nursing profession is getting left behind. Having the BSN requirement would place more value on each individual nurse.

I feel so bad for you FL nurses. I cant imagine taking such a drastic cut. It really is a slap in the face for administration to be so ready and willing to take advantage of the nurses.

I'm glad ADN is the minimum to enter nursing, otherwise I'd quit my program. Maybe some could wait two more years, but many can't. I'd be devastated if I was told after working my behind off in the program, during graduation, that I STILL can't work because I need one more degree as the minimum. We have bills to pay.

[lindarn]

So do members of other health care professions, but they don't seem to mind that they need a Masters Degree or Doctorate, to enter the profession. It is not just about you, it is about what is BEST FOR THE ENTIRE PROFESSSION!!.

I higher level of education is what is best for the profession. Not maintaining the lowest level of education for entry into practice to make it easier to become a nurse.

Next we need to revamp the content of the BSN programs. It sounds like there is too much fluff.

In my RN to BSN program, we had additional higher level Chemistry classes, Pathophysiology, Pathobiology. clinicals (that we had to arrange ourselves), in all semesters, etc. It was not fluff classes.

We need to emulate the classes that other health care professions have gone to, when they increased their entry into practice.

I know that PT and OT added classes on how to start and market your own business, which has enabled them to move out of traditional employer situations, and run successful businesses.

Nursing needs to move out on their own, and establish its own niche. Other professions are taking over in areas that nursing could dominate.

For instance, the proliferation of companies that offer Flu Shot clinics at this time of year, Health Fairs, etc, providing Pre employment testing to the Fire Department or Police Department.

I worked for one of these companies in California, and it was run by individuals who had degrees in Exercise Physiology. They were making 6 figure salaries in this business. They resented me being there, because they were afraid the nurses would take up their idea and put them out of business.

There are so many things that nurse can do. It is unfortunately not a subject that is covered or discussed in school. The PTB do not want nurses to realize what we can do on our own. They do not want to be cut out of exploiting the education and expertise of the nursing profession. They want us to remain, "barefoot and pregnant", and dependent on them for employment.

A BSN is the only way to accomplish providing these type of classes. There is not enough time to add these to a Diploma or ADN program.

The ANA needs to just make a decision to increase the education, and go with it. Unfortunately, the PTB do not want an increased, unified, level of education. They want us to continue infighting, and distracted to we cannot set our targets on important things like universal staffing ratios, pay and benefits.

By the way, the bill here in Washington that would set classroom size of students to teacher, passed in last weeks election. Initiative 1351, set class sizes in the State of Washington, by each school year. Lower grades will have smaller classes than high school, etc. It is now Law in the State of Washington.

If teachers can push legislation to determine class sizes, why can't nurses push for state wide staffing rations in hospitals and nursing homes. No one ever died because they could not do long division or diagram a sentence. How many of our patients have been harmed because we had too many patients to be responsible for?

JMHO and my NY $0.02

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN (ret)

Somewhere in the PACNW

[PMFB-RN, RN]

I do believe there are just too many nurses. Period. This is another reason to make BSN the entry level to practice. The American Association of Respiratory Therapists just announced their plan to implement the the bachelors in respiratory therapy the entry level requirement by 2020. I think the nursing profession is getting left behind. Having the BSN requirement would place more value on each individual nurse.

I feel so bad for you FL nurses. I cant imagine taking such a drastic cut. It really is a slap in the face for administration to be so ready and willing to take advantage of the nurses.

We could have BSN as entry to practice long ago IMO if nursing had taken the well trodden path that respiratory therapy is now taking.

Such a common sense and established path isn't good enough for the ANA and other. They won't be happy until every nurse who had the gall to practice with only an associates degree is punished by being forced to return to school, or is demoted to a "technical" nurse.

Anyway it wouldn't make any difference. Those that deliberately created the glut of nurses would just continue their highly successful tactics and create a glut of BSN prepared nurses.

The goal is the same, to take away the power that nurses had by making us disposable and easily replaceable.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

The ANA needs to just make a decision to increase the education, and go with it.

Nothing I have ever seen indicates that BSN as entry to practice is remotely interesting to the ANA. They are all about getting revenge.

[Nurse-Prestige]

I honestly think having a BSN entry level is good for the nursing field and could promote higher pay rates and less pay cuts.