Does anyone know how to start a revolution? I'd like to know because I think our profession is in serious need of a nationwide strike...quite possibly a global one. Of the 4 hospitals I've worked at 3 of them have awful working conditions....and I've worked in 4 hospitals in several states and different cities so I don't just think its the 'region' I'm in. From the horror stories I've read about nursing in the U.K., I guess I should feel lucky to have an 8:1 ratio, no aids, on a post op ortho floor.
I love caring for people...I became a nurse to care for people, but I'm just darn tired of our 'profession'. We are still treated like waitresses and ****** on severly by upper management and hospital administration in my opinion. There is very little professional respect given to us...there is a lot of talk about giving us respect, but it rarely happens. We mistake all the hot air about respect from our managers/hospital administrators for real respect, just because they talk about it a lot doesn't mean they are doing it.
What is worse is that I feel that it is horribly misleading to encourage ANYONE into our line of work. We talk about being fufilled by helping others and what not in our profession, or at least that's the line of bull I fell for when I decided to become a nurse. Hospitals (75% of them in my experience) don't want us to provide care to patients. You'll be lucky to see your patient again after assessment and med pass. I understand that medicine is a business, BUT here's the kicker: Don't ask me to be compassionate, caring, and customer serivce oriented if your bottom line is more important than my patients. I can't provide good service to 7,8, or 10 people at a time. There's a reason that research is showing that a basice med surg nurse should have no more than 4....you know why? Because that is the number of patients the RESEARCH is showing to be a safe and feesible. And to be frank I'm tired of being the hospital's scapegoat for unmet unreasonable expectations
Why do we allow are selves to put up with being gripped at for staying late but knowing we can't leave until we are done? I've seen nurses clock out on time just to stay for 2 more hours to finish up. THAT IS NOT OKAY! I've seen nurses clock out that they got to have a lunch when I know for certian that they didn't, just because they don't want to get in trouble with management. This is perpetuating false beliefs in what we are capable of!
We brow beat each other when other nurses are not willing to work like a dog and stand up for themselves. It's usually because then we get screwed into taking on the load that that nurse wouldn't take, but really what we should be doing is saying no too. We tell other people who have less loads but still high loads, that they are lucky and should quit complaning about their job. HELLO! We should ALL have reasonable loads and just because you are taking care of 8 people instead of 12 does not mean that either load is good!
We should all be able to go to work and on a regular basis (75% of the time) be able to have 2 breaks and a 30 minute lunch, do a through check of our patient's charts for errors and missed orders, have time to spend with our patients and know their needs, and leave ON TIME!! That shouldn't be a dream! That should be the average day! We should be complaining about missing a break, not missing urinating for 12 hours!
I do not, cannot, understand why there are nurses out there who stab us in the back with the ideal that they took care of 20 people back in the day so we need to shut up and quit complaining about our 8. Well the fact was you were getting screwed back in the day too, I'm sorry they treated you that way, but that doesn't make our current loads right.
We need a revolution. We need to say no, not just for our sakes but for our patients! And it isn't just nurses, this is for most of the people in medicine. 80 - 100 people for a doctor to see in a hospital in a 14 hour shift is crazy unreasonable too. I have a friend who is having to do this right now and I told that to a doctor I worked with and his response is that my friend was 'lucky'. Crazy!!! It's all maddness I tell you and we aren't helping anyone by not be more vocal about it!!!!!!
I agree with all posts here, but I'm a realist. In order for a revolution to occur, the first several hundred nurses on the front line will be cut down. (Fired). That's the nature of war. Which one of us is expected to "take one for the team"? Which ones of us can afford it? Does the fear of job loss make us cowards?
If you unionize, then you have rights. Before you start, plan a strategy before you start, to "bullet proof" trumped up complaints. They cannot fire you because you are trying to unionize. But they can try. Don;t make their jobs easier. Watch your back, and the back of others, to head them off.
Get the public involved and on your side. Keep track of patient incidences, medication errors, falls, etc, to show the public. Have a rally in a VERY PUBLIC PLACE. Invite the press, TV news, reporters, have nurses doing BP checks, hand out pamphlets on different health issues, things of a general interest nature, hand out balloons to the kids- you get the picture.
Have VERY LARGE posters made in KINKOS, with the staffing, errors, falls, the salaries of the CEO, and administration and management, make public the horrible staffing sitiations, lack of breaks, not getting out on time, (nurses need to immediately stop punching out and continuing to finish their work.
In other words, make a big stink, make your complaints relative to the public, (Grandma was left in a wet bed/mess, because your unit was short staffed to send an "extra staff member home", and/or management floated the "extra nurse" to another unit. Keep track of things like that.
You have to make it pertinant to the public, or they will ignore you, or worse, believe the hospital when they say the nurses are just whining about piddly things.
It is YOUR JOB to put the hospital on the defensive. You can only go up from there.
I work in a union facility, and while the union (like anything) has it's downfalls, I thank my lucky stars. Some days when I read things on AN, I hope that people are exaggerating. Sure we are being asked to do more with less, and I don't have any fallacies that upper management gives a care about me. Staffing is not perfect, but I never ever have more than 2 true ICU patients or 3 stepdown. Period. I can make time to pee. I've missed breaks, but I've never gone an entire shift without one. I get paid til I leave, even if it's late. I get paid a healthy wage for my work. I've never been forced or even coerced into working involuntary overtime. I my hospital perfect? No way. But I think some of my worst days sounds like some other peoples' best days other places. Generally speaking, my nurse friends at other local union facilities have simliar experiences. I can not say the same for the one friend I have who works at a non-union facility. I'm not a crazy union person by any means, but they have done a lot for the way nurses and patients are treated.
Does anyone know how to start a revolution? I'd like to know because I think our profession is in serious need of a nationwide strike...quite possibly a global one. Of the 4 hospitals I've worked at 3 of them have awful working conditions....and I've worked in 4 hospitals in several states and different cities so I don't just think its the 'region' I'm in. From the horror stories I've read about nursing in the U.K., I guess I should feel lucky to have an 8:1 ratio, no aids, on a post op ortho floor.
I love caring for people...I became a nurse to care for people, but I'm just darn tired of our 'profession'. We are still treated like waitresses and ****** on severly by upper management and hospital administration in my opinion. There is very little professional respect given to us...there is a lot of talk about giving us respect, but it rarely happens. We mistake all the hot air about respect from our managers/hospital administrators for real respect, just because they talk about it a lot doesn't mean they are doing it.
What is worse is that I feel that it is horribly misleading to encourage ANYONE into our line of work. We talk about being fufilled by helping others and what not in our profession, or at least that's the line of bull I fell for when I decided to become a nurse. Hospitals (75% of them in my experience) don't want us to provide care to patients. You'll be lucky to see your patient again after assessment and med pass. I understand that medicine is a business, BUT here's the kicker: Don't ask me to be compassionate, caring, and customer serivce oriented if your bottom line is more important than my patients. I can't provide good service to 7,8, or 10 people at a time. There's a reason that research is showing that a basice med surg nurse should have no more than 4....you know why? Because that is the number of patients the RESEARCH is showing to be a safe and feesible. And to be frank I'm tired of being the hospital's scapegoat for unmet unreasonable expectations
Why do we allow are selves to put up with being gripped at for staying late but knowing we can't leave until we are done? I've seen nurses clock out on time just to stay for 2 more hours to finish up. THAT IS NOT OKAY! I've seen nurses clock out that they got to have a lunch when I know for certian that they didn't, just because they don't want to get in trouble with management. This is perpetuating false beliefs in what we are capable of!
We brow beat each other when other nurses are not willing to work like a dog and stand up for themselves. It's usually because then we get screwed into taking on the load that that nurse wouldn't take, but really what we should be doing is saying no too. We tell other people who have less loads but still high loads, that they are lucky and should quit complaning about their job. HELLO! We should ALL have reasonable loads and just because you are taking care of 8 people instead of 12 does not mean that either load is good!
We should all be able to go to work and on a regular basis (75% of the time) be able to have 2 breaks and a 30 minute lunch, do a through check of our patient's charts for errors and missed orders, have time to spend with our patients and know their needs, and leave ON TIME!! That shouldn't be a dream! That should be the average day! We should be complaining about missing a break, not missing urinating for 12 hours!
I do not, cannot, understand why there are nurses out there who stab us in the back with the ideal that they took care of 20 people back in the day so we need to shut up and quit complaining about our 8. Well the fact was you were getting screwed back in the day too, I'm sorry they treated you that way, but that doesn't make our current loads right.
We need a revolution. We need to say no, not just for our sakes but for our patients! And it isn't just nurses, this is for most of the people in medicine. 80 - 100 people for a doctor to see in a hospital in a 14 hour shift is crazy unreasonable too. I have a friend who is having to do this right now and I told that to a doctor I worked with and his response is that my friend was 'lucky'. Crazy!!! It's all maddness I tell you and we aren't helping anyone by not be more vocal about it!!!!!!
If the public only knew. instead i have to read the surveys complaining about the doctor taking too long to write dc orders or order a prn . yeah , that doctor has ALOT OF PATIENTS, SOME OF THEM IN THE ICU. not only you, mr. walkie talkie drug seeker............Also once the med was ordered, "the lazy nurse took too long to get it" well that nurse and half the unit was involved in caring for a patient in respiratory distress. i wish this was made up..........
Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.
other than the scarcely hidden jibes aobut the Uk , i'd agree the problem that Nurses i nthe US face is a lack of a clear collective voice, i don't know the figures for Nurses and HCAs as a part of Unison , but the RCN has over 400 thousand members - and these two organisations are the 'big two' in professional representation of Nurses in the UK , and Unision has reasonable membership numbers among various other healthcare staff groups ...
other than the scarcely hidden jibes aobut the Uk , i'd agree the problem that Nurses i nthe US face is a lack of a clear collective voice, i don't know the figures for Nurses and HCAs as a part of Unison , but the RCN has over 400 thousand members - and these two organisations are the 'big two' in professional representation of Nurses in the UK , and Unision has reasonable membership numbers among various other healthcare staff groups ...
And hospitals and nursing homes work VERY hard to keep it that way. Divide and conquer, it still works. JMHO and my NY $0.02.
I have worked in hospitals both with and without a union. I much prefer working in an nonunionized setting. I make more money and my contributions are recognized by my manager and director. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but after working in critical care for over 35 years, I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Yes, I have days that are crazy busy and i go 10 hours without peeing or eating but that is not the norm. I have great hours and am treated as a professional by physicians and management.
When I worked in a unionized setting, jobs were given solely on the basis of seniority. Salary was solely a function of seniority and had nothing to do with ability or education. I just don't feel that unions are in the best interests of professionals.
I have worked in hospitals both with and without a union. I much prefer working in an nonunionized setting. I make more money and my contributions are recognized by my manager and director. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but after working in critical care for over 35 years, I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Yes, I have days that are crazy busy and i go 10 hours without peeing or eating but that is not the norm. I have great hours and am treated as a professional by physicians and management.
When I worked in a unionized setting, jobs were given solely on the basis of seniority. Salary was solely a function of seniority and had nothing to do with ability or education. I just don't feel that unions are in the best interests of professionals.
Would you prefer that jobs are given only to management brown nosers or management favorites? That also has nothing to do with ability or education. Does it? And that is alot less fair than going by seniority.
I am glad that you have a work situation that is tolerable for you. But if you read only a fraction of the threads on this listserve, there are far too many nurses that have intolerable working conditions, intolerable management and administration, NO workplace voice or control. I could go on all night. In other words, your situation is not the norm in nursing.
Please don't personalize threads that encourage unionization of nurses. Not being unionized, and not having control over our profession, no voice, has put us in the position that we are now.
To quote Mr. Spock from an old Star Trek movie, "the needs of the many out weigh the needs of a few". In other words, if unionizing is what it takes for nurses to wrest control of our profession from the greedy bean counters, then that is what we have to do, not so much for ourselves, but for our innocent patients and residents who depend on us to care for them. You cannot be a patient advocate if you are afraid of losing your job and getting blacklisted out of the profession.
Would you prefer that jobs are given only to management brown nosers or management favorites? That also has nothing to do with ability or education. Does it? And that is alot less fair than going by seniority.
I am glad that you have a work situation that is tolerable for you. But if you read only a fraction of the threads on this listserve, there are far too many nurses that have intolerable working conditions, intolerable management and administration, NO workplace voice or control. I could go on all night. In other words, your situation is not the norm in nursing.
Please don't personalize threads that encourage unionization of nurses. Not being unionized, and not having control over our profession, no voice, has put us in the position that we are now.
To quote Mr. Spock from an old Star Trek movie, "the needs of the many out weigh the needs of a few". In other words, if unionizing is what it takes for nurses to wrest control of our profession from the greedy bean counters, then that is what we have to do, not so much for ourselves, but for our innocent patients and residents who depend on us to care for them. You cannot be a patient advocate if you are afraid of losing your job and getting blacklisted out of the profession.
JMHO and my NY $0.02.
Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Somewhere in the PACNW
I can respect your opinion on the issue of unionization so please respect mine. I have not personalized this thread any more than any of the other posters. Most of the issues are out of the control of managment. How can hospitals continue to exist when at least 30-40% or more of the patients are non pay. Money has to come from somewhere! Health care needs to be reformed--no one is disagreeing with that. Health care is a right but with rights come responsibilities.
Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.
I have worked in hospitals both with and without a union. I much prefer working in an nonunionized setting. I make more money and my contributions are recognized by my manager and director. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but after working in critical care for over 35 years, I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Yes, I have days that are crazy busy and i go 10 hours without peeing or eating but that is not the norm. I have great hours and am treated as a professional by physicians and management.
When I worked in a unionized setting, jobs were given solely on the basis of seniority. Salary was solely a function of seniority and had nothing to do with ability or education. I just don't feel that unions are in the best interests of professionals.
which is a function of the fact that 'unionised workplace' in the USA basically appears to mean 'closed shop' ...
rather than the situation that the people rather than the workplace are unionised - most UK nursing settings will have a mixture of Unison and RCN members - with RCM members in the mix in midwifery settings and both Nurse and ODP members of AfPP in peri-operative settings , some community settings especially Health Visitors have Unite members through CPHVA's affiliation with Unite... but equally people are not forced to choose one over the other because of where they work and are free not to be a union member at all, but have no voice in much of the collective collective bargaining especially at the regional or national scale ...
Salaries in terms of 'seniority' depends on how job descriptions and seniority are evaluated - in the NHS roles are evaluated on the basis of the content of the job description and it's mandatory roles to band jobs , incremental progression within roles is on seniority assuming performance is adequate, promotion between roles is by open competition - the only restriction you may find is that jobs are offered internally first - especially if there is service reconfiguration going on ... rather than recruiting externally and then having to make other people in different parts oft he organisation redundant due to service changes...
Thank you for your input, it is appriciated. I would, however, like to disagree with some of your comments.
1) The idea that "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" is as silly as the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words you say will never hurt me." As a person who delt with severe bullying due to obesity from the 3rd grade on, I understand your sentiment, but you are wrong. Words and actions do hurt, and make one feel worse and less competent. I was fortunate to be bullied in my youth and have such supportive and caring parents before I became a nurse. It is because my parents were so insistant on giving me value through all those years of being told I had none, and helping me see the uslessness of the words and actions against me by those that bullied me that I was able to recognize it when I started nursing. I knew how hollow and untrue the actions and words of derogitory doctors, nurses, and coworkers were and was able to quickly see that I was not a bad nurse, the system is bad, but not me.
I think that is an awful lot to ask of someone to be able to recognize their worth as a nurse at the beginning of a new career. I certainly did not want to be the type of nurse to assume that I did everything right and not LISTEN to the opinions of those around me, because that is a counter productive way of learning. Like I said though, I had the benefit of recognizing bullying from my youth and thus able to recognize when a comment was just ment to hurt and one in which was ment to be constructive. I can't see how you can believe that newer nurses without this sort of childhood experience can possibly not be made to feel quite inferior in our line of work. In fact I would wager it is that feeling that causes the majority of losses of newer nurses (5 years experience or less) from the profession.
2) I do agree with you about unionizing. However, unless you are in a state that unions are common this is quite a confusing and scary step for a person to make. I'm from Texas, and while I know there are unions in Texas they are so few that I never met anyone who belonged to a union until I turned 24 and moved to Missouri. At my very first nursing job I would discuss my above concerns with nursing and I almost got fired for talking about 'unionizing' my hospital when I didn't know anything about what a union really was at that point! Just because I was saying we needed to work together and stand up for ourselves I almost got fired! How scary that was for a new grad who is $50,000 in the hole.
I am working towards becoming unaffiliated with any institution and starting a campagin 'NO MORE THAN 4' to work towards unization in my state. I have also started training for a different career, because I have no illusions that such a campagin won't leave me jobless fairly quickly.
3) No there is nowhere that it is written that a nurse HAS to work for a hospital, however, it has been my experience that those without hospital experience are UNLIKELY to get a non-bedside position. Not to mention that those jobs are in high demand which means that more qualified nurses will get those nice non-bedside, 9 -5, feel great about life positions instead of newer less experienced nurses like myself. And really unless the economy changes pretty soon those jobs will become fewer so hang on to yours. Not to mention that some of us would like to be 'just' a bedside nurse if we didn't have to deal with giving people sh***y care.
Thanks for all of your replys! I know well all know things need to change, but we just don't know how to get it done with the money constraints and legislation as it is.
I want to start a campagin in my state called 'No more than 4' to hopefully improve regulations. I'm not sure weither unions or better regulations are the answer. Firstly, I'm not very familiar with unions. I grew up in a state that doesn't have many and thus I don't always understand how they work. From what I've read they have their pros and cons just like everything else. When I started this thread I was thinking more about the American Nurses Association doing some hardcore advertisement/public education about the benefits of med-surg nurses having no more than 4 patients. I got the idea because my friend who is a doctor was telling me that the American Medical Association advocated strongly for MD residents to have fewer patient loads in the interest of safety. They recently had some sucess and have lowered the legal amount of patients a resident can have.... Though he tells me enforcement of the new requirements is not very adequate yet and many residents are still being brow beaten into taking higher loads with threats of firing them. But at least they are working on having a leg to stand on!
I don't know if a union is the answer or not. Personally I'm not in favor of a situation where a professional HAS to join a union to have a job. I would be more inclined for a mixed environment like ZippyGBR mentioned. But from what I've heard from some of our UK sisters/brothers in the profession, that set up isn't working all that well for them either as far as standard patient loads go.
Thanks again to everyone who has shared their thoughts!
lindarn
1,982 Posts
If you unionize, then you have rights. Before you start, plan a strategy before you start, to "bullet proof" trumped up complaints. They cannot fire you because you are trying to unionize. But they can try. Don;t make their jobs easier. Watch your back, and the back of others, to head them off.
Get the public involved and on your side. Keep track of patient incidences, medication errors, falls, etc, to show the public. Have a rally in a VERY PUBLIC PLACE. Invite the press, TV news, reporters, have nurses doing BP checks, hand out pamphlets on different health issues, things of a general interest nature, hand out balloons to the kids- you get the picture.
Have VERY LARGE posters made in KINKOS, with the staffing, errors, falls, the salaries of the CEO, and administration and management, make public the horrible staffing sitiations, lack of breaks, not getting out on time, (nurses need to immediately stop punching out and continuing to finish their work.
In other words, make a big stink, make your complaints relative to the public, (Grandma was left in a wet bed/mess, because your unit was short staffed to send an "extra staff member home", and/or management floated the "extra nurse" to another unit. Keep track of things like that.
You have to make it pertinant to the public, or they will ignore you, or worse, believe the hospital when they say the nurses are just whining about piddly things.
It is YOUR JOB to put the hospital on the defensive. You can only go up from there.
JMHO and my NY $0.02.
Lindarn, RN, BSN,CCRN
Somewhere in the PACNW