NBTH

This is an awareness and opinion polling post as this is not something readers can purchase or join. Reader feedback is most appreciated, as the expressed opinions will help to influence current standard policies to the benefit of the nurses that work within the hospital environment.

Love to help with the confusion. Currently hospital nurses that go out on a leave for a disability have very few options within the hospital because the nature of the work is physical demanding. More options could exist, but they are not being made available. I started the conversation here to make awareness ...who can afford to live on as little as 20% of their current pay if they have to collect on a short term disability?! Many people think collecting on disability is like a lotto ticket, its not ...63% of all bankruptcies can be traced back to a medical condition. Same or better pay options could be made available; hoping to grass root spread the news and get people talking to their managers...

The ADA requires 'reasonable accommodations' be made from an employer, but due to the high physical demands associated with working within a hospital setting - hospitals don't typicall have any meaningful light duty jobs available. Without being able to create 'on feet, off feet' work cycles into routines - injuries rise, absence issues fester, departmental FTE budget limitation issues challange position replacement options, burnout and turnover rise ...all attributing to nursing being the #1 non fatal occupational injury catagorie per the Dept of Labor and the reason behind OSHA publishing a study showing 8 of of 10 nurses state they are frequently working in some sort of NON REPORTED orthopeidic pain! In this day and age of technology, internet connectivity, artificial intelligence, telemdicine codes, remote patient monitoring etc - when considering all the education, experience, collective experience nurses have - WHY aren't more reasonable accommodations being made available at the EMPLOYER level?? I think that in order to comfort the afflicted, we first need to afflict what is comfortable - and perhaps it is time to have administrators re-evaluate current HR related policies and procedures...and challange the advisory brokers and insurance carriers that have been capitalizing on insuring 'disability risk' the same way for eons. I'd love to hear the feedback from real nurses in the trenches!