Florida Hospital cesnses seem to be very low...

*EDIT* Sorry about my spelling lol..

I work in acute med surg now for 5 years, and this is absolutely the slowest I have ever seen us.

Our census atm is 14 patients on a 40 bed unit Med/Surg Unit! And even our telemetry floors are half load.

I am wondering if its the economy forcing people not to come to the hospital but to their general physician even for more serious issues.

I am searching for part time work as I am called off from work twice a pay period (Thats basically a weeks pay considering I work 7pm-7am). They rotate call offs so its not biased but it hurts especially when all my PDO's are used up from calloffs as they have been for two months.

Of course it doesn't stop the seekers and abusers from coming who have no insurance and never pay a dime for their treatment but thats another post for another time.

Are you having the same problems with low patient census? Is this the future of healthcare or isolated to where I am at in Central Florida?

[icyounurse, BSN, RN]

Oh no, I am in Alabama right now working float pool. Census is very low here for this time of year. I will be lucky to be able to pay my bills since my job is per diem. I may have to seek full time employment just to get part time hours.

[Gr8Dane]

I may have to work at a nursing home Wanted to get a few years med/surg experience before making that move but it looks like 1 year nursing experience (LPN) will be all I'll get prior to the switch.

Trying to start back to school in January, but all these call offs have finally affected my financially.

EDIT:

Called off till 11pm, nice of the nursing supervisor to call me at 5pm prior to my 7pm shift (Most ofem wait till 6pm lol).

However now I wait till 9pm to find out if its for all night or not.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

I have heard that this is a common problem all through the U.S. It's another example of our terrible economy. The hospitals around this area have many job openings, however they just aren't filling them. Let's hope things get better soon or who knows how bad it will get.

[Gr8Dane]

I am wondering if nursing homes are staying packed. Seems that might be the most secure bet till I get my RN.

[cmawrule]

I work in acute long-term care in SW Virginia, have been called off 3 times for low census in the past 3 weeks-ugh! I also think it's a sign of the economy. Surprised to hear its so widespread though.

[mc3, ASN, RN]

Our FL hospice census is very slow, too. Don't know why. I'm afraid layoffs may be coming :uhoh21:

mc3

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

We're busy in my facility on the west coast, but not all facilities are.

[OldMareLPN]

I work corrections.

House is always full.

No worry about 'Come to Fl and Break a Hip' low census.

No Call offs.

[Gr8Dane]

I worked for CCA for two days and quit. The shift was horrid 12am-8am, pay was good, work looked like a piece of cake, but no 12 hour shifts?

[FlowerbuddRN2B]

we are calling tomorrow at the hospital I work at "termination tuesday" it has come down the pipeline that there will be layoffs. They have already closed one unit, and rumored to be a few more going. they even thought about dumping all our trauma services and losing trauma status, but decided against it. Our ortho and med-surg has been really low census, staying at 12-13 out of 29 beds each, which is not normal at all, and nurse techs and nurses are having trouble not getting called off, and are not making their 3 days a week. this is Missouri.

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

We've been real low too, the license plates are finally starting to change (we watch license plates instead of leaves down here lmao) alot of people have said their neighbors weren't comming back until after thanksgiving due to waiting on the election to come down so what's a few more weeks until after the holiday. I hope they come back, luckily I've been floated to ICU on low census nights (no one else on my unit wants to float, they'd rather be called off go figure lol)