cdods

Department of labor doesn't mandate that they give you a lunch period. They mandate that if you are not paid for a lunch period, you are relieved of your nursing duties for that period of time. Like I said this place is arguably budget centric and not patient centric. To have 3 nurses on each shift would require an additional 4 fte to the schedule increasing the staff pay ~$300,000. That's not a fight that we are going to win anytime soon when we're fighting for 15 minutes of report time. The lack of lunch doesn't really bug me as it keeps me from eating too much. I just don't agree with the push to decrease the shift report time.

I guess that I wasn't clear in terms of our shifts, I apologize. We are on an 80 hour two week schedule. During which time we work 6 - 12 hour shifts and an 8 hour shift to equal a total of 80. The lunches are not worked into the schedule due to requiring two nurses on the unit and there being only two nurses scheduled. They pay us the full 12 and don't figure lunch into the shift. The main question was the potential push of administration to try and expedite report and their previous attempt and potential future unwillingness to pay for even a 15 minute report time. I was directed in the right direction by a couple commenters and feel that I have enough info to ensure that we are not pushed to give sub-par reports or look past 15 minutes of our time. Thanks everyone.

We are a small ICU. We are staffed with only two nurses for 6 beds and telemetry monitoring. We are the code team and medical emergency team as well. So they cannot ask us to take a 30 minute lunch and have no nursing duties as someone has to be available for the telemetry units even if the other is doing bedside care. As far as breaks go it's a run back to the break room and grab food or whatever else we need. The way it has been attempted to be pushed on us in the past shift time 0700-1900 and 1900-0700. With them wanting report to be done in short order. We've been able to fight it and won in the past. They've even suggested taped report which obviously is not best practice so we've won. I was just looking to see what everyone else was doing and labor laws to fight the obvious BS archaic thoughts.

I'm curious what other hospital policies are or if there are any specific labor laws on hospitals being required to pay for time during hand off report. A little background on this, the hospital I currently work at would pay for 30 minutes of shift overlap to ensure adequate unrushed reporting. A shifting of leadership has led to them cutting that back to 15 minutes added onto the off going shifts schedule in order to give report. There are grumblings that this 15 minutes will be taken away and we are expected to give extremely expedited reports in order to decrease time paid. This raises some obvious patient safety issues as well as staff morale issues, but this administration is definitely motivated by budget. I'm trying to have my ducks in a row prior to them coming after it as I know it will be easier to dispute before taking it away than trying to get back once taken away. Thanks in advance.