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Discussion

Deletion of Head Nurses and Supervisors

I am just curious about the opinion of Nurses from ascross the country about their feelings on the issue of health centers deleting the head nurse and supervisor positions.

I work in a Health center that has recently decided to do this. We are looking at having 128 hours of 168 hour week not covered by a person in charge. As a group we have banded together and our union is fighting for us as well. We have 4000 signatures on a petition against the deletion. Our community is approx 5000 people. Our hospital is a major center for outlying communities and we are always flying people in from further north. Another point in this is that the 4 head nurse positons will be replaced with 8 paper pushers. The 3 supervisors will not be replaced. Does this make sense. We already have more administration than hands on nurses. It is a very frustrating situation. We are losing 7 hands on nurses.

A big reason I came to this hospital as a new grad was the support it had for it's new nurses. There is always an experienced nurse there to help you. If this takes place we will lose more than these 7 positons. Right now 20 of our nurses are preparing for early retirment due to what is taking place, some of these nurses have over 30 years experience. Other Regional Health Authorities have done this and in the end they have had to reverse it becasue their wards fell apart. In one situation a new grad who had never set foot in an OR was running that department. Also there was a EMT who was running a busy medical ward. The new nurse managers are not required to be nurses.

I would really appreciate anyone's opinion on this pro or con. Thanx

Featured Replies

I guess it would really depend on the staff you're dealing with.

I have seen alot of Charges in my day kick back, take no patients, listen to their MP3 player, do crafts, etc. Essentially, they really did nothing and got paid for it. But on the other hand, I have seen so much in-fighting that it would seem impossible at times to function without some kind of "leader".

I really think it depends alot on the personalities of the staff. Sorry, I guess that's not much of an opinion. :rolleyes:

  • Author

We are very lucky to have head nurses and supervisors who are hard workers and pitch in to help the staff nurses when it's needed.

I've just finished a stint in a hospital that had no charge nurses and only one "nursing supervisor" for the entire building. The poor supervisor's pager never stopped, you'd hear her before you saw her.

The worst part of not having a charge is the fact that somebody always wants to be the charge and tries to take over the floor.

The trend for managers not to be nurses was quite common in LTC and Continuing Care. It's a lousy situation from the nursing point of view, you just can't make a social worker or physio see it from the entire point of the nurse. They tend to get hung up over the issues related to their area of expertise. The care needs are met but they don't understand the staffing levels and usually staff to meet minimum provincial guidelines and are loathe to OK overtime because it destroys their budget.:uhoh3:

  • Author

We still have a charge nurse but because we are losing our head nurse her list of duties will increase and she already has a full plate. Our head nurse works 10 hour days Monday to Friday and Nights and weekends are covered by a supervisor who covers the entire hospital.

The worst part of not having a charge is the fact that somebody always wants to be the charge and tries to take over the floor.

Ain't that the truth.

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