Can they make me stay at the hospital without pay?

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I've lived in Florida now for about two years. To date I've been fortunate to escape the obligatory A/B list duty of staying at the hospital before or after a hurricane (and it's looking like Irene may miss us this time). However, I made the comment at work of "at least if we have to stay here we will get "on call" pay". I was told by a nurse who has been here many years telling me that she once had to stay at the hospital for two days before her shift, but didn't get a nickle extra. Now, I understand the whole "mandatory" aspect of staying before or after a major storm event for public safety reasons, but doesn't the law require them to pay us something? Are there any "nurse lawyers" out there who can speak to the legality of this practice? In my case, since we only have one vehicle it would mean leaving my significant other at a poorly constructed rental (a typical central florida vacation home) with my son (or worse still if we both happened to be on shift with his overnight babysitter), and not even getting extra pay.

Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
They could fire me for not going in? Okay, I understand that it is an employment at will state, but they wouldn't fire me if I didn't go to work due to illness or for drinking too much and being too sleepy to go into work (I don't drink, but that's not the point). It would be an "occurence" for calling into work so why would it be any different during a hurricane, snow storm et al. Common sense would dictate that one would call in and say something to the effect of "I'm sick and cannot come into work" rather than "I am refusing to come into work because you will keep me there or because I fear my family will be harmed in the storm while I'm there".

Uhh, I know plenty of people fired in FL, for calling in ill, with a documented illness, if they exceeded their permitted number of occurances. Sad, and not fair but true.

I had called in sick during a snow storm, but had been ill before it occurred or was anticipated, and already had to get OH clear me before I could return to work. I had plenty of documentation and lab tests to back up why I was out, otherwise I would have had a double occurance.

And I can guarantee, that if you call in after a drinking binge and your manager finds out about the drinking issue, somehow they will find a way to penalize you. And many of your coworkers that you left up the creek that night, will secretly be thankful. That is not an acceptable excuse for missing work because you overindulged in the booze.

Being too sleepy - why are you not sleeping. Once or twice because the neighbors were having major construction and jackhammering away, but repeatedly will put your job in jeopardy.

The drinking issue will call into question whether you are responsible enough to work for a company. They cannot control your behavior, where you live or how you live, but depend on you to have good judgement, to be professional and competent when you are assigned to work. If you fail to behave in a manner that facilititates you doing your job for those assigned hours, they have good reason to penalize you.

Illness one cannot control, so it is excusable. Sleep deprivation, less so but still excusable. Weather, when one is warned well ahead of time, and has been informed of the policies of the institution, and there are provisions made for you to aid in work attendance....not so excusable unless there is a very notable exceptions. And given the number of nurses that have homes/families/dependant children/parents/pets, those exceptions are few and far between and should have been discussed with HR/management when you took the job, NOT a few days before the storm hits.

Drinking too much, one can easily control - not excusable in the least.

(as a native Floridian who no longer resides there, I guarantee also that if you call in "sick" for every storm, someone will find a way to cut you loose or make you so miserable that you leave....and many of the staff that do their duty will applaud, especially if they know you are not sick as a dog)

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

If they DO make you stay, they will provide food and a bed for you. Depending on your facility, they may pay you while you are there (likely comparable to on-call pay), but you would have to ask your HR person or your DON for clarification.

Get their response in writing if you can.

I worked for an HCA hospital and you were to bring in your own food and water.

They would provide food and water for the patients but not for the nurses.

I worked for an HCA hospital and you were to bring in your own food and water.

As a former HCA employee, I am LMAO at bringing your own water. My job is supposed to be soooo staff friendly, and they'll only pay for one meal. So when I expect to stay, I make sure to bring some snacks. But we do at least get water. (Of course, we've not been without running water during one of these, and needed bottled water, we'd probably be paying too...)

Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

I worked in a SNF as the assistant director of nursing. We got hammered by a huge, unexpected snow storm over a weekend. Theynasked me to come in since I lived close by. I was there for three days straight. Since I was the senior person in the building, technically I was working the entire time. I got paid for all my time in the building,,,as did the other nurses who got snowed in...even tho they all had time to sleep.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
"In regards to Santiago, did you call for the code red..." YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? "I WANT THE TRUTH!" YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

I get it. It's a quote from a movie -- a famous Jack Nickleson quote from "A Few Good Men." It is relevant to the OP's question, but to "get it," you have to know the context in which the quote occurs in the movie. I'm too lazy to write out a full explanation.

Johnny: Apparently, not everyone has the same cultural touchstones as you do and are not understanding some of your posts. If you really want to communicate with this group, you might want to use references that a higher percentage of nurses would understand.

But then again ... some of us like a lot of metaphor in our communications and appreciate the comedy of Dennis Miller.

Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.

I don't see how anyone should say that we signed up to go into work and they stay there without pay. I can understand saying that I need to stay "close" to work in the event of natural disastors (for instance back when we lived in Indiana and worked for a medical collection company Alverno Receivable Services we used to stay in a motel accross the street from our jobs during snow storms). In the case of my current hospital there are about 10 motels within walking distance on 192.

As for the calling in part. My point was that nurses call in every day for various reasons including being hung over (yes sometimes they even say this). As long as they do not go over the allocated number of occurances per year (and frankly at my hospital even when they do it seldom matters) no one cares about the reason. Then you have the FMLA people who miss up to 20% or more of their shifts (in two recent cases I know of without even bothering to call in) and no one can basically say anything to them. It's like they flash there magical "FMLA" badge and declare invincilbility to the rules that the rest of us are bound by. I think if we get ever get a serious cat 3 or 4 (or god forbid 5) headed our way with a high degree of certainty that I will probably say "screw the job" and call in sick (or just tell them the truth without regard to the consequences which is more my style) and head back to Indiana or at least Georgia for a few days. Maybe I'll still have a job and maybe I won't, but at least my son will still be alive which is more than I can say if he has to ride out a serious hurricane in the cracker box rental that we currently live in.

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