25 Nurses fired for not working Frances

SWFlorida · Sep 30, 2004

I work at the Bon Secours St Josephs Hospital in Punta Gorda, Fl

The majority of the staff showed up for Hurricane Charley per the hospitals emergency plan. We had the Storm team and the after storm team.

The hospital was totally unprepared. The windows were not boarded up. Our hospital took a direct hit, the eye came right over us. The windows were blown in on most of the floors and the roof came off. Water was streaming in thru the celiling. The nurses hauled frightened pts out of their beds and dragged them into the halls for safety. The eletricity went out. IN the hallways the ceiling tiles came flying off and the wires came down. The entire building shook loudly. Many were praying as they thought death was eminent. Luckly due to the brave actions of the nurses not one person died.

Directly after the storm was chaos. Fema came in to help, thank god! We spent the next few days transferring pts out to other hospitals in the state who werent affected. Our emergency room was not damaged so we were the only facility taking in pts....lots of trauma....imagine no telephone, generator power only. The streets were so littered with dangerous debris that most on the post storm team couldnt make it safely in.

When Francis became a threat many of the staff ( who was traumatized themselves) were scared to come in. The hospital had failed to properly secure the building for Charley and now this unstable building with debris for miles around was going to take another hit from a major hurricane. This time administration made it clear in a meeting that anyone who didn't show up would no longer have a job! Many nurses, secretaires and techs were in tears. Many had lost their homes and cars in the first storm. Their own families were traumatized. The hospital never debriefed their staff in the days following Charley. Now the one stable thing in their lives was being threatened.

1. Why wasnt the building boarded up securly? The community depends on the hospital for post disaster care. It is a priority to have a building secured when a threat is eminent. The warnings came in a week in advance. Not one shutter on a window.

2. The staff should have had mandatory de briefing after such a traumatic event. Many on staff reported difficulty sleeping, severe depression, anxiety as well as monetary and personal losses.

3. Prior to following storms management should have had a meeting with the staff and demonstrated a more positive stance. Threatening professionals who had been severly traumatized is very insensitive. A lot of the nurses and secreties are seeking employment elsewhere.

4. Many of the administrators had evacuated their families and themselves up to Georgia prior to the storm.

Yes, nurses have a responsibility to be at their job, but their employer has to be prepared also for what nature throws their way and prepare the building properly.

michelle95 · Sep 30, 2004

SwFlorida, I can't even begin to imagine what you went through. God bless you all.

4. Many of the administrators had evacuated their families and themselves up to Georgia prior to the storm.

Yeah, our Head of Nursing wasn't there, either (for Ivan). I don't understand that. How can you ask someone else to do something you are not willing to do?

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Sep 30, 2004

thought i'd share this article about hurricane policy:

[color=#00457b]http://www.orlandosentinel.com/images/standard/small_logo.gif

hospital pays employees for rest time

by robyn shelton

sentinel medical writer

september 28, 2004

florida hospital now will pay employees for every hour they are required to be at work during a storm, even for sleep time, a vice president for the chain said monday.

previously, the hospital paid hourly workers for just a portion of their rest time. that policy -- which was in effect for hurricanes charley and frances -- caused an uproar among employees and set off an ongoing investigation by the u.s. department of labor.

dick tibbits, florida hospital's vice president of human resources, said administrators decided to change the payment policy after this season's unusual string of hurricanes.

"we decided we need to step up because our people are getting tired and offer them more," tibbits said.

the new policy went into effect for hurricane jeanne. employees who worked in previous storms will not be reimbursed, he said.

florida hospital is preparing a response to an inquiry from the u.s. department of labor, which recently notified hospital administrators that it had received complaints from employees about the previous policy.

for example, during frances, employees were paid for eight of their 12 hours of rest time.

under labor laws, employers don't have to pay workers while they sleep if they meet certain criteria, including providing adequate sleeping accommodations. florida hospital workers said they had to rest on floors in crowded and noisy surroundings during earlier storms.

tibbits said the hospital's original policy is "clearly in compliance with the law." the labor department will not discuss investigations until they are closed.

while florida hospital went to its new payment plan, the area's other large hospital chain, orlando regional healthcare, started paying its hourly workers double-time for every hour at their facilities during a storm, said joe brown, orh spokesman.

orlando regional healthcare also went to a voluntary system for storm emergencies. he said the new arrangement worked smoothly during jeanne, especially for workers who have young children or other family members they don't want to leave.

"these are very stressful situations and we do realize that in prioritizing, people need to put family as no. 1," brown said. "but for those people who don't mind working, they are duly compensated for it."

robyn shelton can be reached at [email protected]r 407-420-5487.

michelle95 · Oct 1, 2004

Well, there you go. I think if double time was dangled in front of folks...as well as getting that pay for rest time, there would be no problem with finding folks to work during hurricanes.

At the very least, people should be paid the whole time they are in the hospital. It is part of the job to have to work during storms, but, the hospital should see it as "part of having such a corporation" to have to pay employees for every hour they are there. :)

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Oct 1, 2004

I guess that's true, but the point I was trying to make was that a hospital now has come about to a more understanding point of view, and no one HAS to come in during the storm.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Oct 1, 2004

I agree with the policy that no one HAS to come in during the storm. Florida Hospital is huge and has lots of employees, so management at smaller hospitals might have trouble staffing unless stricter policies were enforced, or so they think.

I definately agree with paying those who are there the entire time they are they, including break and sleep time. It's the only decent thing to do.

I also agree that management has a responsibility before, during and after the storm to it's community which includes patients and nurses.

kmrmom42 · Oct 3, 2004

It can be very confusing to people who do not work in the Florida Hospital system to understand all this talk about "Florida Hospital" as if there was just one. In fact there are now 16 hospitals that are part of the Florida Hospital system and they are all very different. When the newspapers talk about Florida Hospital they are referring to the facility in Orlando. All of the others have something different in their name like Florida Hospital Deland (where I work) or Florida Hospital Ormond (Memorial Division) where the 25 nurses were fired.

My experience during the hurricanes was interesting to me. I was not on during Charley so I only heard about what went on second-hand. However, I was scheduled to work on Sunday night at 7pm during Hurricane Frances. I got to work just before 6pm because I had heard that there was going to be a curfew starting at 6 in Volusia County. When I got to work the reaction I got astounded me. "What are you doing here?" "I can't believe you came in!" etc. I came to FL from New England just last November...when there was a storm up North and I was scheduled to work I got in my car and made it in to work....no matter how early I had to leave to get there safely. I never missed work for any storm in my life. So, I was shocked that they thought that I would just stay home. The people who were there had been in the hospital since Friday and many had their families and even their pets with them. I went in thinking I was going to give some poor soul a chance to go home...silly me. The hospital would not let anyone leave and now that I was there I wasn't going to be allowed to leave either. I was totally unprepared for that! After Frances the hospital decided to set up a new system for staffing. People were allowed to sign up for either Team A (work during the next storm) or Team B (work after the storm). That system made much more sense to me and I signed up for Team A since I do not have small children or infirm parents or spouse to care for as many others do. I learned a lot about how things are done here in FL and I am adapting. Fortunately, Hurricane Jeanne didn't cause too many more problems for us and the Team system was not put to the test. Let's hope that we will have at least until next year's hurricane season before we have to use it!

Oh, and as for why people were paid during the first storm and then not paid during the second.....because the hospital budgets were being wiped out by storm pay. This crazy system of requiring people to stay and then having to feed and house them, their families and their pets was incredibly expensive. So, in desperation management in some places thought they could change the rules in the middle of the game. Some people posting to this thread were shocked by the idea that staff couldn't use the linen...again this was a money saving move...in our facility at least we pay by the pound for the linens to be shipped out and cleaned...it is very expensive and over half of our patients are non-paying so our budgets are lean. As a result of the storm-related budget deficits unit managers are being mandated to cut where ever possible. This is going to be a tough thing for many hospitals to recover from.

michelle95 · Oct 3, 2004

kmrmom, we had a nurses that worked Tuesday night. She stayed Wednesday and slept (instead of going home) and worked Wednesday night during Ivan.

Times like these we have to pull together. I didn't like being there anymore than any of the rest. I have family and would have preferred to have been with them...however, I knew that my clients needed me. Besides once the power went out...we had generators. I didn't have that at home. :wink2:

RNPATL, DNP, RN · Oct 3, 2004

It can be very confusing to people who do not work in the Florida Hospital system to understand all this talk about "Florida Hospital" as if there was just one. In fact there are now 16 hospitals that are part of the Florida Hospital system and they are all very different. When the newspapers talk about Florida Hospital they are referring to the facility in Orlando. All of the others have something different in their name like Florida Hospital Deland (where I work) or Florida Hospital Ormond (Memorial Division) where the 25 nurses were fired.
My experience during the hurricanes was interesting to me. I was not on during Charley so I only heard about what went on second-hand. However, I was scheduled to work on Sunday night at 7pm during Hurricane Frances. I got to work just before 6pm because I had heard that there was going to be a curfew starting at 6 in Volusia County. When I got to work the reaction I got astounded me. "What are you doing here?" "I can't believe you came in!" etc. I came to FL from New England just last November...when there was a storm up North and I was scheduled to work I got in my car and made it in to work....no matter how early I had to leave to get there safely. I never missed work for any storm in my life. So, I was shocked that they thought that I would just stay home. The people who were there had been in the hospital since Friday and many had their families and even their pets with them. I went in thinking I was going to give some poor soul a chance to go home...silly me. The hospital would not let anyone leave and now that I was there I wasn't going to be allowed to leave either. I was totally unprepared for that! After Frances the hospital decided to set up a new system for staffing. People were allowed to sign up for either Team A (work during the next storm) or Team B (work after the storm). That system made much more sense to me and I signed up for Team A since I do not have small children or infirm parents or spouse to care for as many others do. I learned a lot about how things are done here in FL and I am adapting. Fortunately, Hurricane Jeanne didn't cause too many more problems for us and the Team system was not put to the test. Let's hope that we will have at least until next year's hurricane season before we have to use it!
Oh, and as for why people were paid during the first storm and then not paid during the second.....because the hospital budgets were being wiped out by storm pay. This crazy system of requiring people to stay and then having to feed and house them, their families and their pets was incredibly expensive. So, in desperation management in some places thought they could change the rules in the middle of the game. Some people posting to this thread were shocked by the idea that staff couldn't use the linen...again this was a money saving move...in our facility at least we pay by the pound for the linens to be shipped out and cleaned...it is very expensive and over half of our patients are non-paying so our budgets are lean. As a result of the storm-related budget deficits unit managers are being mandated to cut where ever possible. This is going to be a tough thing for many hospitals to recover from.

Your post was excellent and factual! I work for Adventist Health at a local hospital in my area and can say that they treat their people VERY well. I agree that the drain to the hospitals in Florida must be MASSIVE! No matter what policies you have in place, they will change in relationship to the mere cost of these storms. I am thankful that many nurses and people still have jobs as there are plenty that do not. I have several family members that lost a great deal, including their jobs, so being thankful for what you have is certainly in order.

Thank you for posting factual and objective information.

kmrmom42 · Oct 5, 2004

Thank you for posting factual and objective information.

You are very welcome! :)