Night Shifters: Does your hospital have cafeteria hours for night shift?

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I work in a 420+ bed Level 1 Trauma Center teaching hospital, so don't start thinking this is some small community hospital as you're reading this. For YEARS, the cafeteria has been open from 1:30am until 3:30 am for staff. Being a large facility, a fair share of patient families staying the night also avail themselves to the services of the cafeteria.

Next week they are ending cafeteria service and will have vending machines with sandwiches and salads available. Needless to say everyone is in a tizzy over this. It's supposedly a cost-saving measure. If closing the cafeteria saves my job from being cut, I guess I'm not going to complain too much. But if they are cutting that deep, what's next certainly begs the question.

Our competitor hospital across town, also a Level 1 center, has a coffee shop AND a cafeteria open until 3 AM for their employees. There is a separate cafe in the Children's Hospital as well that is open until 3AM.

I'm just curious what night shifters working in similar sized facilities have available to them.

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Specializes in ED.

the 250 bed facility I work at has the cafeteria open from 12:30am to 3am Sun-Thurs nights. Closed fri/sat. But we also have a vending machine with sandwiches, burritos, ect. Plus all the nursing units have coffee available for family and visitors.

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Specializes in NICU.

Mine's 520 beds, otherwise comparable to yours. We actually have a separate café open Monday through Friday, from 2230 to 0630 (the regular cafeteria opens at 0700 and closes at 2200).

Yeah...we're spoiled.

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Specializes in cardiology/oncology/MICU.
Mine's 520 beds, otherwise comparable to yours. We actually have a separate café open Monday through Friday, from 2230 to 0630 (the regular cafeteria opens at 0700 and closes at 2200).

Yeah...we're spoiled.

I am jealous!! We have nothing but machine food at night!

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.

400+ beds, urban hospital, cafeteria open from 0130-0330. Mostly we just get leftover fish and buffalo wings, but it is better than nothing when you forget your lunchbox!

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Only vending machines are available after 6 p.m. Hospital does not supply coffee, either.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Emergency, SAFE.

400+ beds as well. Cafeteria open every morning from 2am to 4am and then back open @ 6am. There would be a revolt if they shut down the cafeteria; workers and patients alike. :p

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Wow I'm totally jealous. Our hospital cafeteria only stays open until 8 for regular food, then the grill (hamburgers) stays open til 11. It sucks, I wish they'd open later at night.

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900+ beds and the only thing we have open all night is a Blimpies inside the hospital. It's better than nothing, but it would be nice to have the cafeteria open; I think it closes at 8pm.

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I work at two facilities the first:

Level 1 trauma center cafeteria open 24/7. Late night it's normally just the grill and the salad bar, but still not bad.

Stroke center/mainly medical pts: Cafeteria closes at 10pm.

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130 bed community hospital. Cafeteria open from 6:30 am to 7 pm. Vending machines available for after hours.

Day shift gets super cheap, discounted cafeteria food and free drinks. Night shift gets overpriced vending machine food and drink.

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Specializes in LTC.

Place I used to work was looking into opening the cafeteria for a few hours at night. They were thinking about having one of the AM people come in a couple of hours early and having a very limited service. Last I heard it hadn't happened.

Thankfully Jimmy Johns delivered until 1am and a pizza/sandwich place delivered until 2:30am.

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