Thought I'd post on this topic as it's very relevant today -- I got called off for an entire 12-hour shift! Wow!! Now, I don't mind one bit -- I always have stuff to do at home, and I have some PTO to burn. Our census was scary-low in January/February, but rebounded nicely over the last few months. When it was at its worst, we were all trying to do our part to "flex" equally so that it wouldn't be the same people taking the hit over and over.
Just wondering what your experience is with this -- are you asked to flex? Forced to flex? Can you only cover the hours with your PTO, or do they just pay you at a reduced rate if you're called off?
This doesn't usually happen to me, as I typically work 11a-11p and it's usually crazy-busy when I am in the house! (Fecal attractor, anyone?!)
I work ER too, and they make every effort to run us down (low census) to 2 nurses and no tech (21 beds!) They have been doing it a few hours at a time and it's been pure luck that nothing untoward happened.
This is a really big problem. I have tried to find labor laws which might address this issue, and I can't find any in the state of North Carolina. I work in a PACU where we may have a low number of scheduled cases for the day, but then add-ons from the ED double our projected workload. The number-crunchers who calculate our budget only use actual patient minutes to determine if we are overstaffed or understaffed, but that does not reflect the lull when 8 cases are not in PACU yet, but they are going to dump out and we must have nurses to care for the patients. I am beyond frustrated with the way nurses are being treated simply as a liabilities on the hospital's balance sheet instead of essential personnel required to keep patients safe.
The number-crunchers would freak out beyond belief if they were told that there paychecks may vary by several hundreds of dollars each pay period.
I work with one nurse who wants to have a baby, but she has no PDO because she keeps being flexed. I am certain she will not stay in my department much longer.
In our dept, OT goes home first, followed by registry. Then volunteers, and if that doesn't get us there they force based on lowest seniority. I've only seen that happen a couple of times. Usually people are more than happy to leave a couple of hours early. I usually volunteer to go on my Friday so I can kick off my weekend sooner.
We have a low census/leave early list for our nurses. There are always nurses wanting to go home with or without pay, it is up to the nurse. But I have a concern and am curious what other facilities do. We have 3 shifts, 0530-1800, 0700-1930, and 0800-2030. The early shift has double the staff because more surgeries are scheduled in the am, averaging 10 nurses in the am, and 5 nurses in the evening. If one of the evening nurses places there name on the list before an early nurse, they should have priority on leaving first, right? But our early shifters get to leave before our evening shifters because there are more of them. My evening nurses and myself included feel we get the shaft because we work the late shift and we never get to leave early. Anyone have any suggestions or what does your institution do?
This practice reeks of the worst kind of bean counting BS. Especially in the ED, where by definition an MCI could occur at any time. At my previous job, we would be overwhelmed by a single full trauma activation because they would downsize. I believe they assume a level of liability for bad outcomes if staffing is low. Let's say a 5 patient crash came in, we simply would have to hope they wouldn't die. It made for a low level of stress I didn't like. This is one of the reasons I quit. Then they would call me to come in on my off days because they were short. I laugh at their incompetence and shortsightedness! Ha!
At my last, last job, they called me off so much I couldn't take a vacation after 14 months of never taking a day off because I had no PTO. I solved that problem and got my vacation- I quit! So all the money they "saved" by sending me home was spent on training a new person.
I believe I have a "contract" with the job for them to provide me predictable work, and me to do it. I'm a professional. I can't "downsize" my mortgage or health insurance payments. Calling people off is basically treating them like they are on call at all times, or, as an expendable component. This leads to zero loyalty. A better alternative, is to offer anyone who wants to go, to go home. Or, to offer you other work, such as administrative, so you can get your hours. It's a tempting solution for managers, but like other easy fixes, it creates a lot of problems like low retention, low loyalty, and low quality work.
Every hospital I have worked at has one bucket of pto. It's your vaca, sick time, flex time etc.
My last employer had sick and vacation as two separate buckets. I prefer the one-bucket PTO because I always leave sick leave in the bucket whenever I move on (which seems to happen every 5 years or so).
I know this thread is old but it seems like people are still having this issue. I don't mean to threadjack but I have been looking for info related to this subject all over the web on behalf of my wife and I've come up empty...
My wife is a non-clinical employee at a surgical hospital and they have been low censusing her sometimes up to three days a week. We are in danger of not being able to make our financial obligations and I can't find a clear answer as to whether or not this is even legal. I do legal research for a living and it's frustrating me to no end to come up empty on this. I've scoured through the CA Labor Code and the fed's FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) and there's just nothing. Can they even low census non-clinical employees? If she refuses to leave, can they force her legally?
Can they even low census non-clinical employees? If she refuses to leave, can they force her legally?
Unless she is somehow guaranteed full-time hours in writing, then yes — they can. She can refuse to leave, but they can refuse to pay her too. Sounds like time to look for a new job — if she's being called off that much, how much longer is her position viable?
Recently, I was asked to flex after having worked 1.5 hours. Is this legal? I would rather have stayed home and not come to work at all. I am per diem in this place and was asked to come to work specifically on that day. I should have said NO have I known they were gonna have me flex.
(Fecal attractor, anyone?!)
Horrified
2 Posts
I work ER too, and they make every effort to run us down (low census) to 2 nurses and no tech (21 beds!) They have been doing it a few hours at a time and it's been pure luck that nothing untoward happened.