Nurses' Week - Upended.

[evilolive07]

I have worked for a large hospital system for about nine years now. My initial Catholic hospital was acquired by a larger hospital system in the same area more or less because of a failure to thrive. My "old hospital", even when in it's imminent demise, still provided a Nurses' Week gift to all of its employees. The gift was equivalent to a burlap sack, but it still represented the respect that upper management had for its nurses at the time.

Fast forward to 2018 - this year the Nurses Week committee voted to not hand out individual gifts to nurses but instead offer them "plenty of events" to participate in throughout the week. These being the same events that we've had every week for the last 5-6 years since rebranding/acquisition. These events include chair massages that run primarily on day shift, ice cream socials that simply will not work for those of us trying to improve our health, and CE credits that are generally unavailable to staff who work the off shift. The individual gift was the one part of the week that united all of us as nurses. It made us feel good. It was the one giant "thank you," that we received from those who do not work the front-lines everyday. That thanks is now gone, due to what seems like whatever budgeting crisis the system is currently experiencing.

2017-2018 has been another average year. Another year with poor RN staffing, little show in improving employee satisfaction (IMO), and what seems like little thanks for again earning Magnet designation, proving HRO accountability, and meeting/exceeding other metric performance measures.

Forgive my selfish-sounding rant, but I find it difficult to believe that unit clerks are entitled to a gift, and the nurses are not. A $5 coffee mug or tumbler for each nurse surely cannot surpass a CEO/CIO's bonus each year.

Shame on my system. Shame.

Thank you for listening.

[Murse2012]

It's statements like that which leave bad tastes in others mouths. It's no wonder they are phasing out gift buying for nurses. Anyone entitled enough to expect an in person thank you in the middle of the night is quite frankly ridiculous. You mean to tell me that you expect your administrators to make a flow chart and disrupt their personal lives just for you to have the satisfaction of knowing that they were inconvenienced? There are hundreds of Nurses with various schedules! Fellow nurses we really have to get it together and realize that wishing inconvenience upon others, just to feel better about ourselves is hampering our profession. Comments like that make us look bad. Next time you have a bright idea please keep it to yourself.

[Neats, BSN]

It is discouraging to work your tail off providing great nursing care only to be brushed aside like too many toys in a toy box.

Coming from Nursing and Administration I see both sides. But I always acknowledge nurses by giving them a float day paid. This is why I do this: You are worth it. We are worth it.

It is hard to acknowledge in todays environment because as usual I will most surely offend someone not meaning to offend. Dammed if I do and Dammed if I don't. One year I could not do the day off due to budgets so I got each nurse a 20.00 gift card it was all I had in the budget and not enough. 50 percent complained about the gift (I also paid out of my own pocket about 100.00).

I think that it is the Thank you, it could be just a rose, a book marker with a saying nurses turn over each cover! It is the little things that count. An outward expression of how much you are valued.

What I read here on this forum is the typical standard if you do not like it get another job, you are being targeted get another job, too much patient load I will look for another job...the list goes on and on and when you do move, really the end result is, same crap just different faces.

I think nurses need to join forces together, no matter what specialty you have, and really begin to make waves much like those teachers did to get a raise only we need to not only get a raise but better patient loads and CPT codes for reimbursement for nursing services. Until we do this together we will always have a comment that can be positive or negative. We will continue to be viewed as a necessary tool, a sunk cost- but necessary.