Late stay vs Call

[Junebug59, RN]

I work in a 3 rm O.R. We have 5 FT Rn's, one is the Charge Nurse. We average about 6 to 7 call days per nurse per month. This is an HCA facility. So now the HCA corporation has decided they do not want to pay the call team time and half after 3pm when cases run over. So corp has mandated that we have a late team to catch the overflow. NOT WORKING OUT! We also have a spine surgeon that works tues and thurs and usually runs past 3pm. So, therefore, we are REQUIRED to give up 3 days per week to cover late, call and spine coverage after 3pm.

Is anyone else dealing with this? We are too small to do late. It was working fine, the call team knew they had to stay late and it worked. the spine people did the same.

If you have any ideas, i'm listening! Thanks in advance :)

[RobtheORNurse]

Sounds like it may be time to look for another job. Many healthcare systems are doing anything they can to save money (all the while building multimillion dollar additions) and staffing always seems to be an easy target for administrators. When they realize that there is a nursing shortage and they have no nurses, they begin to think of other ways to save money.

[ORoxyO]

I worked in a 4 room facility that did not have call. We were just expected to stay late. We went through some growing pains and we're getting stuck constantly. Management would all disappear at 230 and not ask if we could stay- they just didn't care. It drove me crazy. I had to cancel so many plans last second. Other than that it was an awesome group so I was reluctant to move on. What I ended up getting my coworkers to agree to was a stay-late calendar. We would all sign up for days that worked for us. We did it amongst ourselves and kept management out of it. Basically like being on call without the money but at least we knew who would be stuck that day and could make plans. We were all full time though so we still hour our time and a half.

[Junebug59, RN]

wow... amazing that they didn't even try to help you guys in any way. i know what you mean about being reluctant to leave an otherwise great place to work. i am in the same situation. i really like it here because of the my coworkers who i love, even most of the docs i love as well....