So I'm a new nurse, graduated in May 2020. I went back for my ADN at 30, and working on my BSN now, so I'm a little older than a lot of new grads. I also have a part time job tutoring A&P at my old college.
I'm currently working nights on a TCU/cardiac unit, supposedly full-time at 36 hrs/week. Twice in the past month, since census is lower, I've been put on call and then they've called me off my regularly scheduled shift. So basically they told me I have to use PTO if I want to be paid for what were my regular scheduled hours. Or I can just go unpaid, other than a few bucks an hour for the time I was on call.
Is this a standard practice in hospitals? I mean, I signed up for a full time job, not to waste a day sleeping for a shift I don't even get, and losing pay or having to use what should be my earned vacation time.
I really don't know what to do. I've been here since September, so just over six months nursing experience in total (four if you don't count floor orientation). I have two kids and a partner, I'm the primary breadwinner, and this is not financially sustainable for us longer term.
Is calling nurses off and making them use vacation time/PTO just to make ends meet a normal practice at most hospitals? I literally have no idea, as this is all quite new to me.
I'm really anxious that this is going to ruin me financially, like I budget everything already to the penny and save everything I can, but if this keeps up it's gonna be a problem. It's infuriating that I'm supposed to be working full time but it's actually just whatever they deign to give me.
Without having any hospital nursing experience, I can't say for sure whether or not this is common. It does make sense to call-off nurses if there aren't enough patients, but this should not be a regular occurrence.
With that said, if this continues, you may want to look at applying at LTC/SNFs in your area. I can almost guarantee you that you would have more hours and shifts than you could ever imagine or even want ???
I don't think nurses should be called off if there aren't "enough" patients.
Usually you are worked at a dead run. What's wrong with having an easy shift sometimes?
Do Case Managers and Social workers get called off for not keeping beds filled? Why should innocent nurses be punished?
I don't think nurses should be called off if there aren't "enough" patients.
Usually you are worked at a dead run. What's wrong with having an easy shift sometimes?
Do Case Managers and Social workers get called off for not keeping beds filled? Why should innocent nurses be punished?
Nothing wrong with an easy shift at all. I'm all for days you can keep your head above the water. But if there are 5 patients admitted to the unit and 8 nurses scheduled (just throwing out some numbers here), probably someone is going to be sent home unless they need them to work as an aide, etc. Has nothing to do with punishment of anyone
I don't think nurses should be called off if there aren't "enough" patients.
Usually you are worked at a dead run. What's wrong with having an easy shift sometimes?
Do Case Managers and Social workers get called off for not keeping beds filled? Why should innocent nurses be punished?
So true. When hospitals are overburdening the nurses by not staffing to their budgeted grids, they're "saving" money. But you never hear about applying these savings when the schedule is "overstaffed"- you just hear about cancelling shifts to stay on budget...
This never happened in the hospital where I worked. Nurses were never working less than 36 hours a week. I think it probably had to do with the fact that in this smaller city there was only the one hospital. So it was always pretty full. When the census fell during the holidays we cross trained on a different floor and rotated there. Can you talk to your manager and volunteer to cross train on other floors?
I agree with others who suggested talking to the schedulers. I didn’t mind working weekends because my kids were grown and out of the house while other nurses wanted weekends off. So we would talk to the schedulers and let them know that and were often rewarded with the shifts we wanted. You can also buy their love with homemade cookies! Seriously, that worked for me.
I hope this changes for you quickly, so you don’t have the stress of not getting full paychecks.
You might consider getting a PRN nursing job that you can work around your FT schedule. Based on availability of hours, you could work as much or little as you want and save money for those times when you get called off. I’ve worked 2 jobs for most of my career...at times because one FT job didn’t cover my bills and other times just to have a foot in the door with another employer in case something happened with the first job. There are different ways to work the system.
Kooky Korky, BSN, RN
5,216 Posts
I don't think nurses should be called off if there aren't "enough" patients.
Usually you are worked at a dead run. What's wrong with having an easy shift sometimes?
Do Case Managers and Social workers get called off for not keeping beds filled? Why should innocent nurses be punished?