Low Census

[allstressedout1]

How is low census handled around the country? A little low census is nice on occasion but when you need your income and low census is excessive what do most units do. Like for 8-10 week stretches you are maybe 2 to 3 days a paycheck short. Because a third of the staff are team leaders who are not required to take low census (or call, or holidays, or weekends) the remaining staff get more than they want of the low census. If you want to be paid you have to use vacation because you are not able to pick up extra work because you are still tied to unit by being kept on call while you are low census. Of course then if you are sick or had vacation planned your time is all gone.

[NurseKatie08, MSN]

Surprised by how often it seems to happen to some! Cancellations are handled by seniority on holidays at my hospital, and then by a list of when everyone was last cancelled on non-holidays. I was cancelled once right around Christmas time this year, and prior to that it had been three years since I had last been cancelled. For us it seems most likely to happen on or around a holiday, and only being at my hospital 5 years leaves me with little prayer of getting a major holiday cancel. Also, since I work 12 hour nights, we are cancelled for the first four hours, but then depending on staffing may have to come in at 11p. Days is cancelled in 4 hour increments. Didn't mention as well that on non-holidays obviously anyone who picked up OT is cancelled before someone else is for their regular shift.

[TriciaJ, RN]

We are not let off though. Always kept on call In case needed in our unit, so can't go to just any unit to work because have to be available for ours. Also most of us don't know enough about adults to float on adult floors and can't really float to "dirty" or areas in case we are needed back on ours.

Am I reading this right? You get called off for low census, so that is without pay. Yet you have to remain available. Do you at least get any kind of on-call pay for that?

I take it you don't have a union. You need one.

[allstressedout1]

What states have nursing unions?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

What states have nursing unions?

It's not by state. It's by facility. I'm non union but there is a facility about an hour away that is.

[allstressedout1]

Ok I had heard a lot about unions in the northern states so I thought it state to state

[Isakolistic]

Ok I had heard a lot about unions in the northern states so I thought it state to state

Many states do have their "own" unions, but not all facilities in that state are union facilities. It is up to the facility to decide if they want to be a part of any union.

The facility I work in is union, so we are only allowed to be put on-call for a certain amount of hours per year. Once we hit that maximum, we cannot be placed on-call until the start of the next time period.

[blah_blah_blah]

Sounds like a nice place to work.

There's some things that I don't like but that just comes with my low seniority. I'm second from the bottom. Other than that, I can't complain.