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Nurses Activism

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Specializes in Intensive care, cardiac care post op, er.

I work in a small rural hospital where the nurses are taking cuts on our overtime. We are a critical access hospital so our inpatient only houses 30 pts with the option for swing beds. But our ED is always rocking. We are the only hospital within a 30-40 mile radius and we have no air transport in place for our parish, and the closest trauma center is over 50 miles away. Needless to say we never know whats coming in our doors. Our new schedule was posted today where all full time employees are losing 4 hours of overtime every pay period. we have people that are PRN that are getting 3 full shifts per week. And the supervisors are not losing their time either. We are already working a skeleton crew with somedays only having 2 nurses for 9 beds. I am so frustrated and dont know what to do. They told us that no other hospitals in the area got a raise this year, but they did, one of which is a hospital of the same size with the same patient care abilities as we have.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

Your hospital sounds very similar to mine... except that we're nearly 50 miles from the nearest one (and we only have 22 beds).

Anyway, I don't see OT as something that can be "lost." If you're a FT nurse and you're picking up your regular shifts every week then I think you're doing OK.

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Specializes in Intensive care, cardiac care post op, er.

Our OT was part of our regular shifts. They are not cutting our day just telling us to work an 8 hours shift instead of a 12 that one day. And by the way this is the 4th year in a row we have not had a raise.

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Specializes in CICU, radiology, psych.

I think most hospitals are doing what they can to cut cost and stay in business. We're living in some tough financial times right now, their are lots of people who don't have jobs. It's an employers market (lucky them). If PRN staff get paid less than you do at time and 1/2 it makes financial sense to maximize their hours and cut as much OT as possible. It also make sense to maximize their hours because at most places PRN people don't get benefits, so if you have tons of PRN people hospitals decrease the amount spent on benefits, which is huge. It really sucks loosing OT if you counted on it to pay the bills. I've always just counted on my base rate at 36 hours per week to pay bills, if I make any extra OT it gets spent on the nice little things in life like vacation.:twocents:

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Specializes in Intensive care, cardiac care post op, er.

Ive been here for 6 years full time and since that time it has always been part of our schedule. Our part time people make just as much if not more per hour than my time and 1/2. I just think its poor judgement that no other department in the hospital is losing hours. I mean a hospital our size certainly doesnt need 2 full time echo techs when there is maybe one echo per day!!!

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Specializes in CICU, radiology, psych.
Ive been here for 6 years full time and since that time it has always been part of our schedule. Our part time people make just as much if not more per hour than my time and 1/2. I just think its poor judgement that no other department in the hospital is losing hours. I mean a hospital our size certainly doesnt need 2 full time echo techs when there is maybe one echo per day!!!

Looks like your nurse manager is trying to stay on budget. It seems like it would be across the board throughout the hospital. I know at my hospital there are some floors you can go work extra to get OT but there generally giving it because it's not the best floors to work on, but even this has decreased over the past few years. Occasionally we get OT if our census is up but we have to have some kind of justification. I think the economy thus our ability to make extra money is going to get worse before it gets better. It sucks not getting a raise our hospital experienced this for the first time last year. I work at a really large hospital that pays way better than any others nearby so if I decided to be ticked enough to leave I'd be making less anyway. I just deal with it and try to remember the positives outweigh the negatives where I work.:twocents:

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I guess the only things I have to point out is that I'm glad I have a job period in the crunch for economy.

Also w/ the healthcare junk they've tossed into the system with the government, a ton of the smaller hospitals and even the bigger boys of the systems are scrimping and saving...

Things to look at: If you don't like the accommodations they're making, there's always an option to leave for another job (definitely not a perfect solution, but it's always an option), or going online and viewing what typical pay is in your area/state. If you're far below that level, then you might want to say something. If you're close or on par then I wouldn't buck the horse (unless option one is selected). I do think it's junk that you haven't gotten raises in 4 years, because there's ALWAYS options of cuts in some areas. Sometimes it's easy like cutting an Echo tech that's not needed or finding different distributors for supplies if that hasn't been done recently .... some will fight for your business, others could care less. Other times it's a little more sinister and difficult such as firing those that have been there longer and make a ton more money than others.

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