Osteoarthritis and Employer Exploitation

[mcneillmama3, BSN, RN]

I have been battling osteoarthritis for the past 8 years. Last year my back locked up so severely that I ended up in the hospital ER.

The rheumatologist told me I have to get out of long term care nursing, and didn't advise me to even work in a hospital or private duty situation. He said I shouldn't even be exercising with weights over 5 pounds.

I want to warn nurses every where about a company in NC that is exploiting nurses like myself that cannot do the physically demanding work that they once did as nurses. I won't mention the name, but this company runs flu clinics between October and November. They are actually requiring the flu clinic nurses to work for 10$ less per hour than the standard rate in NC for Registered Nurses is. They also will NOT pay us gas mileage for ferrying the vaccines and supplies in our cars from their office to the clinic and from the clinic back to the office. Sometimes this can add up to 80 miles round trip for some nurses. They also expect us to attend mandatory continuing education classes for the clinics at the rate of minimum wage per hour (keeping in mind that some nurses have to travel at least 37 miles one way to get there)

In my opinion, this constitutes exploitation. This company is exploiting nurses with disabilities because the majority of nurses who work flu clinics have arthritis, IBS, or lupus or are retired. They know that we probably can't work anywhere else because of our limitations and they are taking advantage of us.

What do the rest of nurses who may be reading this think? They are only paying us 15$ per hour for a total of 6 hours, not gas mileage incentive and we don't even get paid for the time it takes to haul the supplies back to the office or our time to pick up supplies for the clinics.