44 days and not one day off.....

Nurses General Nursing

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I read an article about a gathering of 60 nurses and one of our Senators, one nurse testified that she had worked 44 straight days without a day off. When I read that my blood ran cold. Alot of her shifts had been 12 hours long. And this is in a town with 2 nursing schools, and the local hospital pays $1,000 toward your tuition while in nursing school. The contents of this article coupled with what I have been reading on this board and others has made me change my mind. Long, long shifts with too many patients, weeks and months with no days off, AND nurse eating? No thank you. Too bad, I think I would have made a great nurse.

Specializes in Everything except surgery.
Originally posted by oramar:

HUMMMM, let me see. if I had a calendar in front of us to show you I could explain it. Suppose the nurse was scheduled to work 3-11 on the 1st,2nd have 3rd off. work 4,5,6th have7th off. OK, on the evening of the 2nd at 11p just as she is about to leave she gets mandated to work till 7a, managment says you do not have to be back till the 4th at 3-11 so it will be easy for you. This person gets to the 6th and they do it again. Technically, she is getting more than 24 off but if she writes a check on the calendar for all the days she is physically in the building she has just gone a week without a day off. I was standing there when my fellow nurse went through the calendar and checked off all the days and came to the realization that since she liked to split her days off she was really getting screwed. This place loved to mandate going into your days off. If you work somewhere they do not mandate a second shift especially night shift you are damn lucky. It was only on her weekends when she got two days in a row off that she actually got a day off. By day off I mean no check on that date. She was being discriminated against because everyone else was taking two days off in a row most the time so they were only being mandated once a week. Believe it or not this person is 56 years old and still doing a double a week at least. I had to leave, I just could not keep up, I guess I am not made of such stern stuff.

Ok, I got it now. Thanks for explaining this practice.. smile.gif. Now if this nurse is now aware of this, does she plan to put a stop to it?

As for your not being made of "such stern stuff", I beg to differ with you. You were made of enough stuff to put an end to your employment at this place. Kudos to you! I feel sorry for this nurse, but they can only to do you, what you allow to be done. You can either stay with the flow, or flow elsewhere, if you can't effect change IN your environement, then you change your environment.

Brownie

Originally posted by J in MN:

I read an article about a gathering of 60 nurses and one of our Senators, one nurse testified that she had worked 44 straight days without a day off. When I read that my blood ran cold. Alot of her shifts had been 12 hours long. And this is in a town with 2 nursing schools, and the local hospital pays $1,000 toward your tuition while in nursing school. The contents of this article coupled with what I have been reading on this board and others has made me change my mind. Long, long shifts with too many patients, weeks and months with no days off, AND nurse eating? No thank you. Too bad, I think I would have made a great nurse.

That seem's pretty unrealistic. I read through all of the replies and I tend to agree, she could have said no. What was the hospital going to do, fire her for wanting a day off? NOOOOOOOO!!!!! If they are truly that short of personnel, they won't want to burn out the nurses that they have. She most likely worked many short shifts in liu of long shifts. Again that would be her choice.

44 days straight is dangerous for the patients and should not be allowed by any hospital, whether long or short shifts.

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Nursey644 :>

Originally posted by Level2Trauma:

44 days without a day off is simply a "CO-DEPENDENT NURSE" The hospitals thrive on co-dependent nurses.

The hospital I work for called and asked me to work Saturday (I said NO), They called and asked me to work Sunday (I said NO), They called Sunday night and asked me to work 4 hours Monday evening (I said NO). I do work overtime frequently. I worked my last weekend off so I thought I would take this weekend for me. I went fishing with my father and uncle. My father is 72 and my uncle has a prosthetic leg. Now I feel like I worked all day yesterday (LOL). I did enjoy myself though and my wife wants to go fishing today and I need to mow the yard when I get back. Will probably feel like I worked all weedend (LOL).

[This message has been edited by Level2Trauma (edited April 09, 2001).]

Preach it, brother!!! You hit the nail on the head. Exactamundo.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

I also say it is her own fault...and if she chose to do it, don't complain about it! And they can't fire you for refusing to work. I agree...she is an enabler to the institution!!!

this nurse is a supernurse it is our right to say no i blame her how she accept it .

also iam wandering what kind of patient care and safety provided to her patients

isn't that against the law to work that many days in a row...my husband is an auto worker and per their contract they can work 13 days then have to be off the 14th,unless the plant has a varience for whatever project they are doing...i don't have a seperate phone line for work but have found caller id works just as well...i have found out if you tell them no enough times they will stop calling.

Specializes in CV-ICU.

J in Mn, the nurse you described has been USED by her facility, and probably has been used by them many times in the past because she did not know how to say "NO" and mean it. Don't let this quote talk you out of nursing: if you feel you would make a good nurse, then do it; and don't let anyone use you. I live and work in Minnesota too, and my facility has "no mandatory overtime" written in to the contract since 1987. There are many spineless wonders in this world, not just in nursing, and we need even more nurses who are able to speak up for themselves. You and I have chatted before, don't deny your self something you've wanted to do for so long because of this scarey quote.

J - For heaven's sake. This is a horror story written by the person who worked those days. NOBODY can force you to work like that. That was a personal choice. Nursing is full of martyrs but we don't have to be. Don't let this story influence you one iota except to make the decision not to be a door mat.

Hi. As another poster indicated, if this nurse works in the U.S. I don't see, under our current labor laws, how she could've worked over forty hours in a week unless she agreed to it. Her employer also must be insane for scheduling her like that if it happened as she said.

Was she trying to set a world record? Was this nurse really a human being or some sort of clone? Did she actually work these days or was her name on the schedule for 44 consecutive days? Did she make any patient errors? Any patient complaints? What type of setting did she work in and with what type of patients? Did any of her coworkers serve as a witness to her plight? Did any of her other coworkers report working an unusual number of days in a row?

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