Moving to Spokane

Corvette Guy · Mar 27, 2006

Hi! Could anyone give me info or advice as to what nursing is like in Spokane? Or what the city is like in general? I will be moving there in June and need all the advice I can get;)

Sorry, the wife & I are new to Washington. Arrived 3/14/06, I will be here at 3 yrs for active duty assignment to Madigan Army Medical Center, Ft Lewis, WA, which is near Tacoma, or about 45 miles south of Seattle. We live in Tumwater, right outside Olympia. The area is beautiful & the locals are very friendly, too! Susan accepted an offer at Providence St Peters Hospital in Olympia, too.

Good luck in Spokane!

Guitar_Heroine · Mar 27, 2006

I would def check out the posts by lindarn, who I'm sure will reply and tell you to stay the hell away from Sacred Heart I'm a student there now and the staff has been great to work with, but those poor nurses get treated like ****... I enjoy the city as a whole though. I live in a small town about 20 minutes outside Spokane but it's a nice sized city. Enough resources for me but not all the craziness of a bigger city.

lindarn · Mar 27, 2006

I would def check out the posts by lindarn, who I'm sure will reply and tell you to stay the hell away from Sacred Heart I'm a student there now and the staff has been great to work with, but those poor nurses get treated like ****... I enjoy the city as a whole though. I live in a small town about 20 minutes outside Spokane but it's a nice sized city. Enough resources for me but not all the craziness of a bigger city.

I did reply to her and did tell her to stay way from Spokane period. And yes, but not only Sacred Heart, but Deaconness, as well. There are no good places to work in Spokane. Not in the city or outside the city. I would only go back to hospital nursing in Seattle. Thank you for valdating about Sacred Heart!

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 28, 2006

i would def check out the posts by lindarn, who i'm sure will reply and tell you to stay the hell away from sacred heart i'm a student there now and the staff has been great to work with, but those poor nurses get treated like ****... i enjoy the city as a whole though. i live in a small town about 20 minutes outside spokane but it's a nice sized city. enough resources for me but not all the craziness of a bigger city.

i enjoyed spokane, too, while i was married. it wasn't a great place to be single, though. i just never saw any single people anywhere, and as a single thirty-something, i felt invisible! many of my single friends had the same experience. that said, i loved my job in the ccu at deaconess. i loved my little house on the south hill. i enjoyed the climate -- hot and dry in the summer, and a real winter. it's a great little city! i went back for a wedding three years ago, though, and was surprised to find out how much it had grown!

ruby

Lynn216 · Mar 31, 2006

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gdean1 · Apr 23, 2006

quite honestly i love SHMC and know many many other nurses that do. Management? not the best but I know places in Seattle and LA I would never work at either. SH has had some tough years and many of the nurses there are a little bitter over some things but don't let that discourage you. Enjoy your time here and i hope you stay. It's the best place in the world to raise a family and despite recent growth, is one of the most affordable too.

lindarn · Apr 26, 2006

quite honestly i love SHMC and know many many other nurses that do. Management? not the best but I know places in Seattle and LA I would never work at either. SH has had some tough years and many of the nurses there are a little bitter over some things but don't let that discourage you. Enjoy your time here and i hope you stay. It's the best place in the world to raise a family and despite recent growth, is one of the most affordable too.

Providence Health Care has made a ton of money in the last few years, contrary to their pleading poverty when it comes time for contract negotiations. They had more than enough to reward the RNs with significantly higher salaries, and they certainly did not deserve the PUNY 5% RAISES, AND THE INCREASE OF 20% IN THE COST OF THEIR MEDICAL BENEFITS.

Unfortunately, I speak as an RN when I say that there is no good hospital to work at in Spokane. The other hospitals are worse when it comes to how the RNs are treated.

Yes, Spokane has a somewhat lower cost of living, than Seattle, but the Tri Cities has hospitals who are competing with Sacred Heart for business, and they are definately taking business away from Sacred Heart. They are also offering far better benefits to the employees, lower health care costs, and the last time I checked, they were offering DOUBLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE RETIREMENT FUNDS OF THE EMPLOYEES!! They were also offering to put nurses up in local hotels, and pay commuting costs. The cost of living in Tri Cities is less than Spokane, with the cost of housing.

There are better choices for employment than Sacred Heart. Especially for RNs.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

swetvinegar · Jun 1, 2006

spokane is a wonderfully beautiful place to live and work. i am a traveler and have loved every second. a lot of fun and scenic....i am sure u will love it, dont miss the p.i. a quaint little pub that is my "home away from home" just like cheers but better.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jun 2, 2006

spokane is a wonderfully beautiful place to live and work. i am a traveler and have loved every second. a lot of fun and scenic....i am sure u will love it, dont miss the p.i. a quaint little pub that is my "home away from home" just like cheers but better.

i'm sorry that linda has such a negative view of spokane. i loved it there -- you're right about it being a beautiful place to live and work. i loved my job at deaconess and my little rental house on the south hill. i loved the climate, and there are so many outdoorsey things to do. if your husband is going to school at gu, you don't want to consider the tri-cities, so go for spokane. maybe if you go there with a positive attitude, you'll have a much better experience than linda's! good luck, and let us know how you like it.

lindarn · Jun 4, 2006

i'm sorry that linda has such a negative view of spokane. i loved it there -- you're right about it being a beautiful place to live and work. i loved my job at deaconess and my little rental house on the south hill. i loved the climate, and there are so many outdoorsey things to do. if your husband is going to school at gu, you don't want to consider the tri-cities, so go for spokane. maybe if you go there with a positive attitude, you'll have a much better experience than linda's! good luck, and let us know how you like it.

spokane may be pretty, but the reality is that working here as a nurse is not. there are three schools of nursing here in a very small community. and the way nurses are treated is reflected in that. i have fond memories of seeing the charge nurses run into the patient's room when the attending showed up. she would follow him around behind him, like an obedient puppy, and read him the patients v/s, morning labs, etc. what century are we in? they also had, what had to be, the most cheap, user- unfriendly, equipment that i had ever seen.

deaconness, in all of its financial mismanagement, was really in the red a couple of years ago, and gave 9 percent across the board pay cuts to all but the few unionized departments in the hospital, of which nursing was not at the time.

everyone who could leave, did. they have since improved their bottom line somewhat, and given some of it back, but not all. and it will never make up for the pay that has been lost.

now they are advertising for supplemental nurses, no benefits, no differentials, for the princely sum of $36 an hour. nurses at sacred heart who are salary alone, core staff, and decline benefits, are earning $40 an hour. don't spend it all in one place. i will be happy to send you the adds.

not to be outdone by deaconess, the nurses at sacred heart, with their last contract, approved a contract with a 5% pay increase, and a 20% increase in the cost of medical benefits. wsna started the contract negotiations late at the request of the hospital, and then could not muster enough guts and gumption, to get the hospital to not increase the cost of medical insurance, or increase the amount of pay increase they were offering. they did not even negotiate retroactive pay for the nurses, since the contract expired in december, and the new contract wasn't signed until march. they lost three months of retroactive pay. the nurses had to settle for the crappy contract. as nurses went in to vote on the contract, they put in their paperwork to get out of wsna. other departments have since unionized with 1199, and negotiated, and receive, seattle/tacoma area wages, probably 30% higher than the eastern washington/ north idaho wage model that the nurses got.

in another recent thread it was pointed out how much money providence has made over the last couple of years. sacred heart nurses have received none of it.

the other hospitals are worse. holy family, i believe, still had mandatory overtime, with ratios of 15-16 patients per nurse on nights, and valley is folding financially, big time.

that, is the reality of working in spokane. it may be a nice place to live, but not to work if you are a nurse. it is a low income, financially depressed area, that is why it cost less to live here. hs drop out wages are the norm. with no benefits. if that is what you want, come on down.there is a sucker born every minute.

and yes, the nurses at deaconess are still some of the nastiest people that i have ever had to work with, and i have worked in three states. my friend's husband went to work at deaconess in the cardiac unit. the stories that he told her, and she related to me, were worse that when i was there, and validated what i had put up with there. the same nurses never leave, and chase away the nurses who they decide they don't like. it was still going on. he has since left and now has a great job working for washington state. he had his bsn, and that is why he got the job.

management was the worst. there was a female nurse manager, who started to have an affair with a male, married night shift assistant nurse manager. he finally moved in with her after he left his wife and small daughter, and she put him on day shift so he could work with her during the day.

one afternoon, the housekeeper opened the door to her office with her key to clean it, and found them naked, on the floor doing you know what. (ruby, you can tell them all that i know all about what still goes on there). she screamed, everyone went nuts, as you might imagine. nurse manager was fired, but he was not. that is some of the stuff that goes on there. it was also not that many years ago, when they had lpns working in the icu. you had your two icu patients, and had to be responsible for the lpns patients, as well.

good luck on what ever decision that you make. there are outpatient dialysis centers that you might look into for employment, or do what i did, legal nursing. and left the hospital entirely. pm me when you get here.

lindarn, rn, bsn, ccrn

spokane, washington