Mandatory cut-off age for being a bedside nurse?

[Katie5]

Say, you get to a certain age, and then a mandatory retirement from being a bedside nurse to other aspects of nursing.

Your opinions please:)

[lorazepam]

my opinion: lawsuit, it sounds discriminatory

[Katie5]

Ativan, what about it actually became law?

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Ativan, what about it actually became law?

There is no manditory law retirement age. For the government it is so you can collect SS. As far as hospitals are concerned the older you get the more liability you are..........if they want you gone they will find a way. ever wonder why you don't see alot of grey haired nurses in hospitals......we are undesirables. If you have any "disability" at all including your age try geting a job after you have been laid off.......I have been jobless for almost a year.........when your resume has the year you graduated it is not a hard stretch to figure out my age......Legal? no.......Do they get away with it? YES.......they are very smart and very good at evading the facts and skimming the edges of legality........discrimination is very difficult to prove ( a personal journey) because hospital know how to evade direct questions and manipulating data to prove thier point of view...

[Up2nogood RN, RN]

How about a mandatory minimum age requirement to start with than?

I've worked with many *competent* nurses well past the age to collect SS. I've also worked with many *young* nurses with little common sense or life experience in general.

[elkpark]

I have known people still doing bedside nursing well into their 70s -- and most of them could run circles around younger nurses. My mother, who hadn't had a license or practiced nursing since she took maternity leave with me decades earlier, started volunteering as a Pink Lady at a small local hospital after she and my father moved to a new area, and the hospital was so impressed with her performance as the OR volunteer (she had been an OR supervisor when she last practiced) that they offered to pay for her to take a refresher course and get a license if she would come work for them -- she was in her mid-70s at the time. (She decided she didn't want to, but was v. flattered and proud that she got the job offer!)

I agree that it would be v. dicey legally to mandate a retirement age, and I, personally, am certainly not interested in being told that I must quit working, or doing any particular type of work, at a specific age.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Well, if someone in the younger set wants to pay my bills so I can retire - have at it - lol.

[roser13, ASN, RN]

Good luck filling those bedside nursing positions with using the over-50 (or -40 ro -6- or whatever you're envisioning) without the "experienced" nurses.

[lucylu 777]

It is happening everywhere - my husband is a pilot and by law they have to retire at the age of 65 as if they are not fit or capable to fly the plane, too bad that expirance and whisdom that comes with age does not stand for anything anymore.

[casper1]

Many older Nurses are fully able to care for patients at the bedside. Older Nurses are often more sympathetic to the concerns of their patients, having experienced many of the same illness and loss.

I have worked at a hospital over 20 years and have worked with many Nurses who are past retirement age. These Nurses are patient and posess a wealth of knowledge. The physical part of the job can be a challege, but lets face it hospitals have not done enough for any nurses young or old to help prevent physical injury from lifting.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I say as long as they can competently do the job, let them do the job no matter what their age is.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

For the sake of argument, I will assume the OP is wanting to discuss a hypothetical situation for nurses, which is actually reality in certain fields. A previous poster mentioned airline pilots; state police officers are another group typically subject to a mandatory retirement age.

It is important to note that both of these real-life examples are fields where the workers are represented by collective bargaining units, and benefits tend to be more generous than they are in private industry as a whole. (news flash: "private industry" includes the vast majority of health care organizations)

Because nurses are employees of myraid private and public organizations with widely varying duties, and without large-scale representation in collective bargaining, enforcing a mandatory retirement age is probably unworkable and unlikely to survive court challenges.

Hospitals and other facilities which employ direct-care nurses are notoriously often unwilling to provide not only equipment which reduces the risk of physical injury, but also the staffing and time in the work day necessary to minimize the risk of long-term injury to nurses, whether they are 25 or 55.