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

Nurses General Nursing

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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.

Specializes in Med Surg/Tele/ER.

No cafeteria, no pharmacy after 2100, and a lot of the time not enough staff after midnight!....but night shift is not busy & doesn't need that stuff anyway....Right? :uhoh3:

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

1830 to 0200!

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.
No cafeteria, no pharmacy after 2100, and a lot of the time not enough staff after midnight!....but night shift is not busy & doesn't need that stuff anyway....Right? :uhoh3:

wow! I've never worked any place that pharmacy was closed. We use Cerner and pharmacy puts in all our mediaction, fluid orders in and are the only ones that can modify, dc or apply orders. How the heck do you function?!?

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Specializes in Emergency.

Level I trauma, 300 bed teaching hospital, stroke center, top 100 hospital this year, and Magnet.

Cafeteria closes at 1900. Opens again at 0630. Hate it. It's funny because for the past couple of years the hospital has had a big campaign for employee health. How about make it easier for your night shift people to eat decently?

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I guess I'll stop complaining about the lack of selection on night shift. Our cafeteria closes from 1900 then reopens for night shift from 0100 to 0300, the selection depends entirely on who is there, and can range from steak and broccollini, to chicken strips and fries. Usually there is a salad bar though. I agree if the starbucks were to stay open they'd make a killing.

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Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

200 bed hospital. Cafe closes at 7PM, period. Patients can't get supper trays after that, admitted patients can't get supper even if they were waiting in the ER for 4-8 hours. Here's a turkey sandwich and some juice. As for stafff going down before 7PM? Heh, forget about it, we're usually wayyy too busy. Once every 3 weeks we have a "midnight meal", but it's usually leftover food or lukewarm. Not worth it. I've learned to keep emergency food in my locker, dry/canned. and eat before I go to work every afternoon.

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.

Wait... you get time to eat?! :p

We used to get "mystery meat sandwiches".

Stopped it this year. "Cost cutting measure".

Oh well, never had time to eat 'em anyway...

cheers,

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

470 bed hospital: Cafeteria closed at 7 pm. There was some people who came around with snacks we could buy at 1030 pm, but then they took that away too.

100 bed hospital: they had the pre packaged sandwiches and soup available til 2 AM, but I believe that's about to be cut.

525 bed hospital: cafeteria is open until 10 PM and then again 130-330 AM for night shift.

With budget cuts continuing though, that could all change. It usually motivates me to make my own lunch and save money anyway. Plus lunch choices tend to not be that healthy.

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Specializes in Psych , Peds ,Nicu.

We live in a country that for the most part is very health concious , we work in the healthcare industry providing 24/ 7 care , so why is it that the bean counters feel night shift can eat burgers / snackfoods , don't need a warm meal ( protien , starch and vegs )and staff plus visitors don't need 24 / 7 coverage for their dietary needs ?

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.
We live in a country that for the most part is very health concious

You've obviously not met my patient population.

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Specializes in cardiology/oncology/MICU.
You've obviously not met my patient population.

Nor mine! Overweight, high LDL's, HA1C>10, having families bringing mconalds into the hospital for them!

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Specializes in Med Surg/Tele/ER.
wow! I've never worked any place that pharmacy was closed. We use Cerner and pharmacy puts in all our mediaction, fluid orders in and are the only ones that can modify, dc or apply orders. How the heck do you function?!?

It is not easy sometimes, but we do....and we are the only Trauma Center in ~ 100 miles. We mix a lot of our own drips, and have a night closet that has many meds in it. If it is something we can't handle we can call pharmacy in.

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