I am an RN working full time in the ED. Every shift I am subjected to below par PPE standards. Asked to re-use N95 and surgical masks for multiple patients, covid or not. So it was not to my surprise when I got a call informing me a patient I had provided care for later had a positive covid 19 test. I was informed to contact our employee health if I developed symptoms. A few days later I had a cough, sore throat, HA, fatigue and sneezing. I contacted my employee health as instructed, a test was ordered, I was instructed to remain at home til I received my results. Unfortunately I am still waiting......
My issue with the situation is that my employer has already let me know the repercussions of a negative test, should that be my result.
I will receive an occurrence for missing my shift while awaiting test results. (The quantine was orderd by employee health)
I will have to use my accrued PTO to cover any hours missed while in quantine awaiting my test results.
I will also have the weekend shifts I miss counted against me while in quantine awaiting results. Meaning I can have less weekend shifts off for the remainder of the year.
As an employee I have always helped when it comes to providing for our adopted Christmas family or the food drives. As an ED nurse I am in the frontline of this pandemic, caring for those in need, risking my own health for lack of PPE. This has been extremely difficult for me to understand how the hospital I work for can treat me this way as I await my results.
The community has been amazing and supportive of our ED staff. They have given snacks, meals, encouragement and thanks this entire time. However, the hospital I work for can't do the same. It is shameful to work for such an organization.
As I said earlier, I'm all for complaining about how sick days normally work, including that I get an "occurrence" for a sick day even though it's employee health that says I can't work given certain symptoms, and that these rules should be relaxed for now, but an occurrence isn't itself "discipline" as the OP claimed, it's a record of absences that could result in discipline depending on the circumstances, so it's misleading to claim that they were disciplined, and exaggerated and misleading complaints work against us when it comes to less misrepresented concerns, like appropriate PPE.
When I press for more appropriate PPE (and yes, this is as a bedside nurse, I didn't realize I'm seen as such a prick) it doesn't help if we've allowed for the impression that we often exaggerate our complaints and arguments, that just means I'm stuck wearing crappy masks into a Covid room, which argue is a bigger deal than sick-time policies. But I do agree with you on one thing, that's enough of this for me.
Except that this situation really should have no place in any observed pattern of absences.
And if there IS NO intention to lump this in with other absences, why do they need to bother entering an occurrence into the employment record?
I work in detox and once worked overnights in a place where I was the only nurse for 32 people at night with lax training and drugs being passed all night by newly hired staff who were high themselves.
I have seen meth in action at 2am and my heart is pounding as they are unpredicatable. I have warned my don repeatedly I would not admit patients at night because it was not safe.
My wake up call when when someone upstairs had relapsed (css) and was now crazed out of his mind because they (admin) told him they he wpuld have to be kicked out the next morning and left for the day. With out informing me. He still had drugs on him and was hanging out a window threatening suicide and they told me not to call the police they would come handle it.
Do they care about you? No. You need to never go back. The current detox I work in we have 2 nurses at night and during day and evening there are two sometimes 3 and my don makes clear that nurses judgement overides admin money makers.
There were so many things in your post that scared me.
This is a toxic unsafe environment. Please take the unemployment if you can figure out how while you rest.
There are other jobs even other detoxs not like what you are describing. And even those 24hr admissions ..no one walking in at midnight high or drunk is safe. Period.
While it may seem sometimes we are at their mercy no one can argue with your nursing judgement because its your liscense.
I hope you have the funds and resources to walk away from that job and personally I feel like they would probably have to eat that unemployment cost for a while especially with no ppe. Even short term disability if you have it.
Also,
Those ppl shaming you are not your friends. They were your "work friends" and sorry they dont care about you because they dont care about themselves.
When I called HR to determine if my employees who are kept off for COVID symptoms received an occurrence my jaw dropped when they told me yes. How can we beat people down harder when they could possible have the illness, I originally thought to myself. Then I started having employees calling in saying they had COVID symptoms and I'd later be told that they were posting snaps of themselves drinking or doing other various activities and I started to feel less bad. It really is a bummer that employees like that ruin it for everyone else. I think if my employee ended up with a positive case I would "Accidentally" forget to count it but even that's still not very fair. I have employees at risk of being fired because they are on their last strikes and I feel bad but then again they had ridiculous call ins to even get to that point so it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. I can't wait for this whole COVID garbage to be done.
How many out of how many are on the last leg?
The ones who call off and do such idiotic stuff really should be seriously talked to. That is just so wrong, so stupid, so making it bad for others who call off for legitimate reasons. I think HR should move their work areas to the wards - without masks, gloves, etc. HR needs frequent enemas.
If they are calling off, what is the job setting like? Staffing or ridiculously difficult schedules are the usual reasons for excessive calling off.
What number of days do they get for calling off? Sometimes a furnace breaks in January. Sometimes kids are sick. Cars break down, actual sickness occurs, or other real life emergencies take place. Deaths in the family, stuff like that.
On 4/3/2020 at 11:44 AM, Hepatokween19 said:
I think the community is really getting behind us as nurses and hopefully this crisis will help lead to a reckoning in terms of for-profit care, undervalued nurses, and greedy corporate management. Therefore I say if you have put into writing your concerns to management, HR, etc and they still don’t want to pay you properly, go to the local media!! Like the local news “problem solvers “ or whatever they have in your area.
Don't expect the sympathy to last after this is over. You must take action to form unions. YOU must.
The ones who call off and do such idiotic stuff really should be seriously talked to. That is just so wrong, so stupid, so making it bad for others who call off for legitimate reasons. I think HR should move their work areas to the wards - without masks, gloves, etc. HR needs frequent enemas.
While I think it’s a Richard move for your employer to do this to you can thank your jerk co-workers for creating the issue. There is an element of employees who are using vague, unmeasurable symptoms to get themselves a two week paid vacation with no repercussions and no loss of time. We have a certain department, that I won’t name but we desperately need, doing this in spades and one of my nurse colleagues has done it to us except she refuses to get swabbed so no proof she doesn’t have it. ?
The thought never crossed my mind! That is horrible and shame on them for taking advantage of this.
I am on day 11. I still get a fever, cough and SOB. But I could go to work with it but I have to stay home until I am 72 hours clear, in case it is really COVID. I don’t get any paid time off. I tested negative last Monday and retested yesterday. I know there are people who would use this for a vacation. This is no vacation and I am not getting paid unless I burn up my PTO. I will receive an occurrence.
Unfortunately that act also seems to exclude many nurses. The paid leave requirement only applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees. This is the exact wording I am seeing:
"Covered Employers: The paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave provisions of the FFCRA apply to certain public employers, and private employers with fewer than 500 employees.[4] Most employees of the federal government are covered by Title II of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was not amended by this Act, and are therefore not covered by the expanded family and medical leave provisions of the FFCRA. However, federal employees covered by Title II of the Family and Medical Leave Act are covered by the paid sick leave provision.
Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees may qualify for exemption from the requirement to provide leave due to school closings or child care unavailability if the leave requirements would jeopardize the viability of the business as a going concern."
Seems like most hospitals and many other health care facilities are now owned by large corporations with way more than 500 employees over their entire system so if I am reading the language in the act correctly that would make a lot of nurses ineligible since many of us work for companies with more than 500 employees.
So it looks like the first version explicitly exempted health care workers from being eligible for any assistance and this version still exempts many health care workers simply because so many are employed by big companies.
Whether that exclusion leaving out many nurses based solely on the size of their employer was intentional or not I can't say, but it wouldn't surprise in the least if it was.
Seems like most hospitals and many other health care facilities are now owned by large corporations with way more than 500 employees over their entire system so if I am reading the language in the act correctly that would make a lot of nurses ineligible since many of us work for companies with more than 500 employees.
It does not make them ineligible it gives the employer leeway as to whether they apply the act or not. The thing is the employer gets a tax credit for every employee they allow to use emergency sick pay so many of the large employers are falling in line because it behooves them to do so. For people who work at hospitals that are calling you ineligible this is when you should be going to your local media. But you have to be smart about it. The nurses at this hospital successfully got their administration to change their minds. The current sentiment about front-line HCWs will work in our favor.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately, you've got plenty of company in this boat! I've heard so many stories of nurses going without pay while in quarantine, regardless of the result of their COVID swab. Some aren't even being swabbed at all, and are going without pay. Others aren't being paid because they're told that they picked up the virus from the community, and not at work. All of that is totally unacceptable.
Working closely with an attorney who deals in federal law, we've developed an organization that intends to stop these practices (The American Society of Nurse Advocates). We've developed several positions and written suggested statutes that we are presenting to US Senators and Representatives. Some of those positions are
Hazard pay
Continuation of pay for mandatory quarantines
Reasonable assumption that a healthcare professional who has contracted COVID-19, likely did so at work
We are presenting this to Congress with the intention of making these (and other positions) nationwide standards. We're sending letters to the Senators and Representatives of our members. If you'd like, we can send one to yours too! It's absolutely free to join our organization. We're trying to reach as many nurses and other healthcare professionals as possible.
If you'd like to join or learn more, we're at www.americannurseadvocates.org. We're also on facebook (American Society of Nurse Advocates) and Instagram (@AmericanNurseAdvocates). If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me!
Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN
5,047 Posts
Except that this situation really should have no place in any observed pattern of absences.
And if there IS NO intention to lump this in with other absences, why do they need to bother entering an occurrence into the employment record?