Ohio: Nurses look askance at $30,000 bonuses

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

merely 'short-term solution,' they say

thursday, april 18, 2002

by tim bonfield, [email protected]

the cincinnati enquirer

http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/04/18/loc_nurses_look_askance.html

a three-year, $30,000 bonus offered by the health alliance of greater cincinnati to attract staff for its specialty cardiac-care services drew criticism wednesday from the ohio nurses association. the bonus is the largest ever offered in greater cincinnati and may be the biggest nationwide.

linda warino, president of the association, said sign-on bonuses for limited parts of a hospital staff are "short-term solutions" for a widespread dissatisfaction among nurses who work in hospitals.

the new bonus will do nothing to improve, and might even aggravate, the nursing shortages that have prompted record levels of hospital diversions in cincinnati, she said.

"nurses work hard and diligently in all areas of practice. i hope the hospital system will be as generous when working to fill (other) vacancies," ms. warino said.

the ona is about to begin contract talks with the health alliance, where union nurses at university hospital have a contract that expires in june.

"we're thrilled to hear that the health alliance can afford to offer $30,000 bonuses," ms. warino said.

gail myers, health alliance spokeswoman, said the hospital group offered the large-but-limited bonuses because it hopes to recoup the spending through increased patient volume in one of the few profitable areas of hospital care.

if attracting more cardiac patients aggravates staffing levels for intensive care and recovery units, "we will address those issues as they arise," she said.

get it: no one will stay working in unsatisfactory conditions. we don"t have to take it any more!

[oramar]

There are 35 roll your eyes post over on the general boards about this.

[Mijourney]

Hi. Here's another one of my ho hums. If the Titanic is sinking and you decide to rapidly remove water from the lowest end of the ship, will that stop the entire ship from eventually sinking?

On the other hand, you rapidly remove water from the end of the ship that is fastest sinking, you attempt to do repairs, and if the repairs are successful, you stop the ship from sinking. Does that mean the problem is solved?

The proposal by this hospital sounds like so many of the proposals tried in past shortages. It's another bandaid solution. If the hospital plans to go through with this seemingly short-term solution, I hope that they are working hard at finding long-term solution to their shortage problem.

[daisymae]

I guess if you can stick it out for 3 years, it COULD pay for your psych counseling and inpatient services.

I used to work for a small rehab hospital that started offering large bonuses. And I thought $2500 was a lot. They couldn't get anybody to stay either. I finally got sick of all the negative attitudes from Admin. and left too. And now, 4 years later, they STILL can't keep staff. Do they ever learn? Probably not.

[moonrose2u]

i work with 2 nurses who are going to interview this week for these top jobs.

they are being sucked in, like others who are clamoring to find the perfect nursing job for lots of money

30k is not enough for me to jump from the frying pan into the fire...

[Peeps Mcarthur]

It's spit in the ocean if you look at it in a practical way.

The bonus likely gets divided into unequal parts, the largest being the last year. In the very unlikely event that it does get divided into equal parts that would be $10,000 per year, which after taxes at somewhere over 40% for bonuses, would come to a little over $5,000 a year.....................Divide THAT by 12mo!

Now we're at a little more than $400 a month. Divide that by the TRUE number of hours a nurse with a monetary obligation to stay no matter how bad they make it will work...............shall we say 50 hours a week just to lean towards the conservative side.

That's a $2 an hour pay raise.........Gee I'm stoked:rolleyes:

[-jt]

Sign-on bonuses dont work. Youd think hospitals would have realized that by now. All they do is create more of a revolving door & its money thrown away. How many RNs are they willing & expecting & have enough money to pay these kinds of bonuses to? Considering that its probably several at least, thats a lot of available cash. It would be so much effective if they took that money & invested it in improvements that will make that hospital the kind of workplace that nurses will want to work in. Starting with increasing the salaries & benefits of all the staff RNs there.

I still believe that job-hopping looking for the "perfect job" gets us no where. It changes nothing in the long run. We have to stand our ground to raise the standard and to make the employer we have give us what we need. Running away just lets them continue to get away with keeping nurses oppressed & also gives them a perfect excuse to say "oh well there are no nurses - we'll just have to use more UAPs"

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I too believe job-hopping for the sake of bonuses isn't ideal. We have recently lost two night-shift RNs due to a $6K bonus from one of the other local hospitals. Personally, I'd like to see more retention incentives.

[lever5]

I can be treated like s*** anywhere. I will go for the laragest paycheck.

[-jt]

but why should you be treated like s*** anywhere..... no matter how much they pay?

I dont think job hopping helps to stop them from treating us like s***. In fact, they probably treat the ones with sign-on bonuses even worse because those people have to put with anything thrown at them in order to get their bonus.

Why shouldnt we demand the pay AND an end to the s****y treatment?