How much should nurses be paid?

Nurses General Nursing

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As a registered nurse of sixteen years plus a few months, I think I should be making at least fifty dollars an hour base pay.

Aaaaaand......your thoughts on what you feel you should be paid for your professional nursing services? :nurse:

Fee for service nursing charges would completely change the way hospitals (and insurance companies) operate wouldn't it, Eltrip? My generation discussed this topic in nursing school too...27 years ago...so it's been a longterm fantasy for nurses...LOL!

I make about 33 hr including diff ...this is nights, prn, with no benes. I'd be thrilled to get benes along with that rate, so that would be my vote. Gotta say I'd prefer an extra nurse per shift vs a raise or benes though...ah we can dream, right?? ;)

Nice to see you posting again Renee! I had a feeling you would notice the changes in our jobs over the past 10 yrs, as well as the difference in our 'customers' demands. It hasn't changed for the better has it. Hang in there girlfriend!! :)

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I would be happy with my rate of pay $21.85 if they would pay me double time for every lunch and break that I am not able to take because of short staffing, and also double time for every hour I work over. It could work like this: The nurses schedule their breaks and lunches to cover for each other. When they send up too many admits or a patient has trouble and the other nurse cannot cover- I call the nsg. supervisor and ask them to cover my break. When they tell me "no" I fill out a time sheet for this missed lunch or break and am reimbursed.

What do you think? Wouldn't this be fair? But I doubt that my institution would go for this. They would label me a troublemaker.

So I guess I will wait until after they have labeled me a troublemaker to bring this up.

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.
Originally posted by mattsmom81

........Nice to see you posting again Renee! I had a feeling you would notice the changes in our jobs over the past 10 yrs, as well as the difference in our 'customers' demands. It hasn't changed for the better has it. Hang in there girlfriend!! :)

Hi mattsmom

Yes indeedy! The changes are so unreal that's for sure! :chuckle

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Originally posted by Rapheal

I would be happy with my rate of pay $21.85 if they would pay me double time for every lunch and break that I am not able to take because of short staffing, and also double time for every hour I work over. It could work like this: The nurses schedule their breaks and lunches to cover for each other. When they send up too many admits or a patient has trouble and the other nurse cannot cover- I call the nsg. supervisor and ask them to cover my break. When they tell me "no" I fill out a time sheet for this missed lunch or break and am reimbursed.

What do you think? Wouldn't this be fair? But I doubt that my institution would go for this. They would label me a troublemaker.

So I guess I will wait until after they have labeled me a troublemaker to bring this up.

That IS the law here. Unfortunately too many nurses don't even put in for for fear of being labeled 'troublemaker' or 'complaining'.

On units where alsmot all nurses put in for it they staff better. True!

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Specializes in Perinatal/neonatal.
Originally posted by cheerfuldoer

Not a bad thought, eltrip! :)

And....roxannekkb......I'll fly anywhere for a nursing job that would pay me $75.00/hour! Wow! That's what I'm talking about!

I sit here on my day off work thinking about how much we give as nurses and how little we receive in return (on a financial and benefits basis that is).

If it weren't for the patients that touch my heart, I don't think I'd keep doing nursing at all because I have had some very rude family members make me want to quit. I've had patients who want and want and want like they are at the Hyatt Regency. And, it is really really bad when nurses don't support nurses.

What will it take to increase the money power in the realm of nursing? It's obvious more education hasn't moved that mountain yet, so where do we go from here nurses??????? :nurse:

Hi there...ya said it all in this post! Esp. about patients that think they're on holiday at the Hyatt!!!

~Angie

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

NurseAngie........the worst part of it all is the hospital's support that "childish behavior". And....if a visiting family member or patient says a nurse is "rude or bad news", and the nurse says "she/he is wrong about that"......guess who is believed???

It's almost as if you have to have witnesses to your nursing care who will vouch for your conduct or treatment of visiting family members and patients.

That's pathetic! There are four words that I hear voiced a lot where I work and those words are:

The Budget and PR (Patient Relations).

You do a bazillion things right, and get little to no recognition, but do one thing "against PR" as the patient/visiting family members tell it, and your doomed...hands smacked...receive a disciplinary measure of sort as if you've killed somebody.

I had a visiting family member call me rude when it was he that was rude. I was NOT believed UNTIL my patient's family members present at the time of the encounter told my nurse manager that I was not rude, but the visiting family member who was very rude to me. That alone made me want to walk out and never return.

If nurses can't be trusted with patients and their family without having to have a witness present on the nurses behalf to say the nurse was not what the patient or family member said, then why are we there taking care of them? We need video cameras on us to protect ourselves and microphones to record what we say while at work. Has it come to this? :confused:

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Wow, is this what I have to look forward to after I graduate?

Those kind of things would make me want to walk out and never return, too. These are the things that make me second guess if I should become a nurse.....

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

Cynthiann.....as very well you should rethink your decision to become a nurse. The pay is lousy, the nurse/patient ratio is beyond dangerous levels, the nurses receive no respect from higher ups, some patients, and some family members ---- there are some good ones on board in all three areas however ------

The scariest part is I am seeing in the hospital "Reality T.V." in the flesh where we could be a real part of the t.v. show called COPS as nurses get sued, arrested for indangering patients, and fired for not being believed.

People are carrying video cameras with them to protect them from the law these days when they are stopped by police, and neighbors are video taping other neighbors whom they suspect of child or spousal abuse, etc., so now that arena needs to be moved into the hospitals to protect nurses and patients from internal and external harassment.

Now........what should nurses REALLY be paid to put up with this type of unfair treatment?????

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Originally posted by Mel D

Good post, Anthony. I agree.

Yeah, me too!! Great post MICU RN, I couldn't have said it any better. :cool:

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Well, Renee, they couldn't pay me enough! I got out. I was making $33.00/hr with 21 years experience. Nothing is worth the abuse out there today. And this is what the nursing shortage is all about. There are plenty of nurses out there, just not enough who will continue to put up with the hostile, unsafe condtions in the hospitals today.

I wish you luck. You're a better woman than I am.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
Now........what should nurses REALLY be paid to put up with this type of unfair treatment?????

Ask this question again in about 10 years.... this is when the demographic shift of the current "nursing shortage" is really going to hit the fan. :eek:

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Originally posted by Mel D

Good post, Anthony. I agree.

Ditto. Sue

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