As of noon today, the staffing office says 13 nurses and nurses aids have called off sick for night shift. There will probably be more by the afternoon cutoff. Though staff also call after the cutoff time. They also come to work and leave a couple hours into the shift, deciding they don't feel well enough after all.
The last group are the worst because they cause a hospital-wide scramble of nurses changing patient assignments right before the main night shift med pass. Sometimes nurses end up switching to other units to cover the sudden absence. There are about five nurses in this hospital that do it often enough for others to notice.
It is the Monday of Thanksgiving week. As it goes every year, the number of sick calls around holidays, school vacations, etc. seems to go up and up. Thirteen staff in our hospital equals every nurse in the Telemetry Unit calling off - 10 floor nurses, 2 break/resource nurses, and the charge nurse. It is not a big enough hospital to have that many staff call off in one shift.
So now, for those of us who trudge in who are also tired of Covid and tired of working short handed, we will probably not get any breaks. There is no way we will have break nurses with 13 calling off. The charge nurses will probably have assignments on the med-surg units. Who knows if this will be the night the hospital goes out of ratio due to not enough nurses to care for the patients, despite a dozen travelers in house.
I think these nurses calling off, who are not really sick, are jerks. I know there are nurses on this website that blame administration for all of this. I can't. What level of professional calls off at this rate? It is ridiculous. They make it even worse for the rest of us. We would have had a decent night if 10 of those staff showed up.
When I came to nursing, I had no idea I would work with so many self-centered individuals who would leave their coworkers hanging because they can't be bothered to come to work, and don't understand the need to balance a schedule.
