betsy1963

If I can manage to keep my full-time job for the next 13 years I will retire at 55 and then volunteer some place. I live in Canada so I don't have to worry about paying for health insurance and my husband will keep his drug plan when he retires.

The diabetics can use the glucometer and inject their own insulin under our supervision. The insulin is drawn up for them in the medication room. The lancets and syringes are safety ones to prevent needlesticks after they use them.

Through ONA there is insurance coverage available, but I can't remember the company. However, it doesn't seem like a very good deal-there is a $1200 a year limit on drugs and a $10,000 lifetime. I forget how much it is per month. Also if you have a pre-existing condition i.e. diabetes it is hard if not impossible to get without being part of a group plan. Your employer may very well let you join by paying both your and their cost. It may be expensive but it is important but you never know when you are going to get sick.

I,m sure the person just phoned to see if you had given it and just forgot to sign for it. They then could give it late. Everyone is human and I'm sure that most people have forgotten to give a med with how busy things are. I know it shouldn't happen, but if we all only had 2 or 3 patients (HA HA) we would be more perfect.

Ontario has a requirement where new graduates have to have their BSN.The rest of us are grandfathered. I have mixed feelings about this. While I appreciate the value of a degree, the downside is that there will be a shortage of nurses here that will be a lot worse since there are so many nurses retiring in the next 10 years or so and there aren't as many nurses graduating. This is worse in less populated areas as many "older" people would bite the bullet to go back to school for 2 years at the local college, but won't up and move to a larger centre for 4 years. The younger people tend to go away to university and don't come back. The hospitals in my area give no help to go back to get your BSN. If you're lucky you may get to go to class every week if you have enough vacation time.

I wouldn't worry about your height as being an issue, as I'm 5'1" and I haven't had any different problems than taller nurses. The important thing is that you are able to use common sense, are able to say no when you need too and are able to follow protocol. I work in an institution for inmates with mental health issues. It is for those with sentences less than 2 years, but some of the fellows have done federal time in the past for violent crimes. Nurses provide the "care" on the units and the correctional officers come if we have a behaviour problem that we can't deal with. I feel safer here than the psychiatric hospital that I worked at.

This show may have been on awhile ago, but I just came across it. It is about how many mentally ill inmates there are in the prison system. Very interesting and very, very sad. I work in an institutuion that is for inmates with mental health, addiction problems. Nurses run the units and correctional officers only come in for transfers out of the institution and out of control behaviour problems.

We have a computerized MAR program where I work but I don't know whether it was made up by our IT department or is a purchased software. I work in a jail/Schedule One Psychiatric Hospital. The doctor writes the order originally on a blank MAR sheet and then it is faxed to pharmacy. Every month the pharmacy then does a computer generated sheet. When they come we go through and make sure the orders are the same as valid orders from the month before. The doctor doesn't have to sign the new sheets because they continue on until he discontinues the order. (Exception narcotics are only for 7 days and have to be ordered by a psychiatrist- not medical doctor.) Discontinuations are done by the doctor right on the sheet. WORKS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried to find the contract online, but I couldn't find it this time. I have before but some of the locals websites aren't working. You could try some other time by going to Google and searching sites from Canada and type in ONA. This will give you the Central Bargaining contracts and then each local has a local agreement. As you may already know the current contract expired and it has gone to arbritration.

ONA is the main bargaining unit for nurses, but there are others. Those of us who live in rural areas live well on what we make compared to Toronto, but how would you draw the line otherwise? Wages are bargained centrally.

I can only answer for my experience with ONA. As far as I know type of experience has nothing to do with the pay level."A nurse is a nurse."I don't have a copy of the contract with me, but if there is extra money for BSN it isn't much more. I have not idea why the pay scale is less in Quebec. Ontario nurses got a big pay raise quite a few years ago now and maybe the nurses in Quebec didn't have the same gain. The negotiation is probably possible, but people aren't likely to tell anyone. It probably doesn't happen very often in a union setting because people would grieve it.

The main union for RN's in Ontario is ONA and the pay scale is 22.44 to 33.75.It takes 7 or 8 years of full time work hours to get to the top rate. If you worked fulltime at one place for 3 years and 4 years at another you would be at step 7. The contract expired in March and recently went to arbritation so sometime in the future these rates should go up. If you aren't full time you get 13% in lieu of benefits and vacation pay starting at 6% of your wage.

What are the 6th right of medication?

The basic guidelines, for Ontario for example, would be covered under the labour law for the province. You could look at this by doing at search at www.gov.on.ca. Most hospitals and nursing homes have unionized staff and they build on the laws-that is they are better than. I don't know of any place that has forced overtime over than to be on call for such places as the OR. Of course, management tries to make you feel guilty when they call and you say no. Call display is a wonderful thing. I am not familiar with there being workload limits. Many places are funded by the government so there is a budget.

There is no across the board entitlement to vacation in Canada that I know of. This is something that is negotiated in contract. Some places you start out with only 2 weeks, but 3 seems to be the norm. A lot of places would also have 10 or 11 stat (holiday days). Other places will let you take overtime in time off rather than money. It is up to individual places on whether they allow unpaid leave or not.Another thing to remember is that with 12 hour shifts you don't always use alot of time to have a week off. It might be 24 hours used to get a week off.