Kaetlyn

See...that's just it. My hospital is a medium-sized, small-town hospital in a town where people's entire lives revolve. It's not like they have to worry about nurses moving around to other local hospitals, without a lot of inconvenience and much time spent on the road to travel long distances to be able to work at other hospitals. Also, they have 2 nursing schools in the town that serve to provide them with plenty of staff, so do you see the dilemma? They can afford to do whatever they want with the staff they have, such as give out ultimatums like "like it or leave". I've lived 5 min away from my job for many years...and the thought of not only starting over at a totally new hospital, but a drive of minimum 90min to 2 hours each way to work at a different facility is pretty difficult to think about. I love my work...I love my patients...I love the field of oncology nursing. I just think the nurses should be able to have a voice....and for someone to not only listen....but to actually "hear" us Kaetlyn RN

I've worked at the same hospital for the last 20 years. I've never been as unhappy with my job as I have been for the last year or two. Our hospital has developed a staffing matrix that a lot of the staff nurses think is not only unfair, but unsafe. We have been told flat out..."If you don't like it, then leave". We're talking about nurses that have given their entire life's career to this hospital, that now have no voice or ability to air their frustrations, for fear of being labeled as a "negative" person that's only trying to stir up trouble. Things have come up as simple as referring to our unit clerk as a "clerk", as in asking a co-worker to check with the "clerk" about ordering something....instead of referring to the clerk only by her first name because we've been told the unit clerk sees this as being disrespectful to her for her to be referred to as "the clerk" Staff nurses are continually taking turns getting called off for no work, then getting put "on call" for the entirety of their 12 hour shifts due to low census, with no on-call pay. We've worked under these conditions for at least 2 years, and everyone has been very patient with low census conditions, but now with the tightening of staffing even further, and the threat being put to us to either like it or go elsewhere to work, and not able to speak a word about our "not" liking things the way they're going...has increased the stress level through the nursing staff. Any thoughts about this...or suggestions on how to handle the increased stress this has brought to our jobs and our lives would be greatly appreciated. We just feel that we're totally unappreciated as licensed professionals at this point. Many of us long-time employees either have left already, or are seriously considering it when our only thoughts used to be retiring from a hospital and career that we were proud of. Thank you for a venue to vent that doesn't threaten my job... Kaetlyn RN