Poor nurses

Nurses General Nursing

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I have been at my facility for 2 years now. I am not complaining about the work--we all know that it is exhausting, patients never satisfied, endlessly busy BUT....now that I have gotten to know some of the nurses at my hospital, it appears that they are POOR! I guess I might call them the working poor and this just does not seem right. My starting pay including diffs for nights is 19.00 per hour. Day shift makes about $18.00. I must also stress that everyone always says "well it is a low cost area of living". Well not entirely. My groceries cost the same here as they did in the city. While it is true that one can buy a very nice home for $180,000, there really is not much under 180k. Restaurant prices are the same. School supplies for my kids run about the same as those in the city. My car insurance is probably a little less but the price of the car was no different. What I am getting at is that there are nurses at my hospital that are in foreclosure. One I know has applied for food stamps. The reason is that we have not gotten raises now for 2 years. Also hours have been significantly cut. At the most I am able to get 32 hours per week. Our LPN's only get $10.75 per hour. I really do not know how they can live on that. I am considering getting a NP degrees online and leaving this area. The NP's around here start out at $23/hour I am told. Someone even thought that was really good! Are there any other poor nurses out there. I am sure someone will flame me and say be glad you have a job but I spent 14k to be able to do this!

Specializes in NICU, School Nursing, & Community Health.

Nurses definitely make that little in my area of Fl so I sympathize. There is no weekend diff, no specialty diff, no holiday pay. The highest PRN commitment at my hospital only pays $25 an hour. They also hire most nurses part time and I tend to get down staffed once every pay period. I have looked for other work but no one is hiring in my area so I'm stuck. It is very tough to make ends meet and we don't live beyond our means as others have tended to indicate. Family health insurance is $200 a month and that's without copays, deductibles, etc. And my power bill is $250 and that's keeping my a/c at 77 degrees :mad:

Yes, I plan on moving but hubby is in school right now so it's not an option. Can't wait to be out of FL though!

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Specializes in MedSurg, Clinic, ER.

If it helps put things in to perspective, here's how we live on hubby's $17/hr pay

avg take home is $1800 - 2000 per month after taxes, health ins, etc is taken out and the amount depends on occasional overtime or short days because he works for a small telecommunications business that contracts his services out as support for phone systems as well as contract IT work.

Mortgage payment - $630 (rent prior to buying was $550)

internet - 70

auto & home insurance - 200

electric - ~250

phone - 60

food - ~300

gas - ~150 (usually lower but i am commuting 30 min one way for my summer class)

(annual tax bill on our home is around 700 because we live outside city limits on 2 acres with an ag exemption)

We don't eat takeout. When we do go 'somewhere' it's usually camping or something similar that costs very little. We save every extra penny we get on the overtime-heavy checks so that we can afford those occasional situations that throw the budget off (school clothes, flat tire, a/c went out at the beginning of summer)... we don't buy anything without a reason. We don't have a car payment and we don't do credit cards. We don't pay water/sewer because we live in the country and have a well/septic. We do not have any sort of cable TV service and don't really watch the television unless it's a dvd.

Is it fun? Not really... I would love to be able to compulsively shop once in a while! However, I consider the stability of not being broke more important than buying things. We could probably drop the internet too, but we agreed it's more than worth the cost.

When I graduate and find a job, the amount of pay really wont matter because our first goal is to pay off the house... Depending on takehome pay, it shouldn't take long at all (a year or so...) and then our cost of living could be met by earning minimum wage if necessary. More security and stability.

I have been broke and near homeless in my life... when my ex-husband left me with 3 kids and no job or transportation. It is scary... especially when you have 3 people depending on you to make things work.

My two older kids have flown out on their own now and turned out pretty well rounded... (Even if there were some days they made me crazy as teenagers.. lol) They didn't have expensive clothes and we didn't go to Disney or whatever... They know what counts... the younger two are 12 and 13 right now and even they know what the word no means.

I'm not saying this is the ideal situation... I make a lot from scratch and sometimes I would love just to have a takeout night for the break! I am just pointing out it can be done with careful sacrifice of what is truly non-essential... HTH

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Specializes in NICU, School Nursing, & Community Health.

I'm not saying this is the ideal situation... I make a lot from scratch and sometimes I would love just to have a takeout night for the break! I am just pointing out it can be done with careful sacrifice of what is truly non-essential... HTH

Just want to say you don't know everyone's situation. Not everyone who is tight financially is out spending money on Disney vacations and expensive clothes. I, myself, have a very ill mother I care for and that is an added expense there.

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Just want to say you don't know everyone's situation. Not everyone who is tight financially is out spending money on Disney vacations and expensive clothes. I, myself, have a very ill mother I care for and that is an added expense there.

I don't think she was trying to speak to anyone's situation but her OWN.

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Specializes in NICU, School Nursing, & Community Health.
I don't think she was trying to speak to anyone's situation but her OWN.

Hmmm....didn't read like that to me.

"I am just pointing out it can be done with careful sacrifice of what is truly non-essential"

However, it's hard to read someone's intention on the internet so I could be misconstruing. :confused:

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Specializes in MedSurg, Clinic, ER.
Just want to say you don't know everyone's situation. Not everyone who is tight financially is out spending money on Disney vacations and expensive clothes. I, myself, have a very ill mother I care for and that is an added expense there.

I apologize, I wasn't trying to imply others are actually doing that... those are things I would love to be able to do but consider non-essential... I know that everyone has different situations and I was just offering a peek into how we do it because a previous poster indicated an interest in how someone could live on the lower incomes indicated.

I really have no basis to compare myself to anyone else, so I don't even try. I really didn't mean to come off that way...

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.
I guess that poster hasn't ever worked with a lazy and or incompetent nurse?

A lazy, incompetent nurse would have lost her license/job. You can't be lazy when you have a ton of sick/dying patients that need proper care. There may be some more hard working nurses, but a lazy nurse? Let's see how long one would last in a hospital.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
A lazy, incompetent nurse would have lost her license/job. You can't be lazy when you have a ton of sick/dying patients that need proper care. There may be some more hard working nurses, but a lazy nurse? Let's see how long one would last in a hospital.

Really?? I have no clue how long you have been a nurse but surely not long enough if you haven't had the pleasure of working with someone lazy or incompetent. :D

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Specializes in Nursing Education, CVICU, Float Pool.
A lazy, incompetent nurse would have lost her license/job. You can't be lazy when you have a ton of sick/dying patients that need proper care. There may be some more hard working nurses, but a lazy nurse? Let's see how long one would last in a hospital.

Some of those lazy and incompetent nurses may slip through the cracks of detection and actually don't lose their license/job. Just like some people who are reckless drivers, and have other peoples hands in their lives when their on the road, don't lose their license all the time.

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Really?? I have no clue how long you have been a nurse but surely not long enough if you haven't had the pleasure of working with someone lazy or incompetent. :D

I'm not a nurse yet but at my first CNA job at a LTC facility, I worked with nothing BUT lazy and incompetent nurses. One was so lazy that she couldn't get up off her *** to pass meds. She would sit at the nurses station, put them in a cup, then call one of her butt-kissing CNA's to come over and pass it. Once, a resident was in really bad shape, I thought he might die that second. I went and told her and she waved her hand dismissively and said "Oh, he's DNR, don't bother with him". I was like "Oh, since he's DNR we just say to **** with him?" DANG.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I'm not a nurse yet but at my first CNA job at a LTC facility, I worked with nothing BUT lazy and incompetent nurses. One was so lazy that she couldn't get up off her *** to pass meds. She would sit at the nurses station, put them in a cup, then call one of her butt-kissing CNA's to come over and pass it. Once, a resident was in really bad shape, I thought he might die that second. I went and told her and she waved her hand dismissively and said "Oh, he's DNR, don't bother with him". I was like "Oh, since he's DNR we just say to **** with him?" DANG.

Do not let this put a bad taste in your mouth, while this happens, it is not the norm! It can take some searching but expect to find a great team with only maybe one or two weaker links

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I have been at my facility for 2 years now. I am not complaining about the work--we all know that it is exhausting, patients never satisfied, endlessly busy BUT....now that I have gotten to know some of the nurses at my hospital, it appears that they are POOR! I guess I might call them the working poor and this just does not seem right. My starting pay including diffs for nights is 19.00 per hour. Day shift makes about $18.00. I must also stress that everyone always says "well it is a low cost area of living". Well not entirely. My groceries cost the same here as they did in the city. While it is true that one can buy a very nice home for $180,000, there really is not much under 180k. Restaurant prices are the same. School supplies for my kids run about the same as those in the city. My car insurance is probably a little less but the price of the car was no different. What I am getting at is that there are nurses at my hospital that are in foreclosure. One I know has applied for food stamps. The reason is that we have not gotten raises now for 2 years. Also hours have been significantly cut. At the most I am able to get 32 hours per week. Our LPN's only get $10.75 per hour. I really do not know how they can live on that. I am considering getting a NP degrees online and leaving this area. The NP's around here start out at $23/hour I am told. Someone even thought that was really good! Are there any other poor nurses out there. I am sure someone will flame me and say be glad you have a job but I spent 14k to be able to do this!

Oh my goodness, if a nice house costs 180k, $18/hr is very good pay for your area.

In my neck of the woods, a "starter" home would cost about 300k, and new nurses make about $30/hr. It's still considered far above average pay. I suppose it's all relative though. Even in a low cost state, I imagine it would be hard to afford a house, kids, car, etc. on your own.

You should certainly be getting more raises though. I hope.

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