sick time accumulation in the er

[TRAMA1RN]

I work in a busy ER, where we average 24 to 32 hours of mandatory overtime in a one month period. I am curious to see how other ER's handle call off time in reguards to overtime. Since overtime in th ER NEVER gets cancelled like the regular floors, does your overtime cancel any of your call off time. Where I work 3 occurances in 6 months can get you a three day no pay suspension. Is this fair you paper will say for poor attendance even though an average 1.0 person actually works 50 to 65 hours weekly average. Poor attendence? :angryfire

[Dixielee, BSN, RN]

I don't have a lot of advice except that a 3 day no pay suspension might be a welcome break! I have worked at hospitals that did that petty stuff and I got out of it. If we were ONE MINUTE late it was considered a transgression. I am not talking about one minute after the "7 minute" grace period. If we were suppose to clock in at 0630 and we clocked at 0631, it counted against us. Three of those equalled one "occurance", and you were fired after a certain number. If you clocked in one minute early, it counted the same as being late. We had to clock in on the computer, so everyone was huddling around the 2 computers we could use jockeying for position to clock in. What a mess!

If you were more than 30 minutes late you were counted as absent...a big NO NO. One nurse who always worked a 12 hour shift was scheduled for a 16 without her consent or knowledge. It had been "added" after the original schedule came out. She was scheduled for 7p-7a routinely. When she did not show up at 3 pm per the "new" schedule they called her at home and told her she was supposed to be at work. After some discussion, she made it in around 4 pm...but was counted "absent" because she only worked 15 of her 16 hours.

I worked a travel contract at the above hospital and could not wait to get out! The good news, is there are GOOD places to work who do care about more than pettiness, the trick is finding them.

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

No, it is not fair to require so much overtime and to then penalize you for being human and getting sick. This needs to be addressed in a staff meeting, ask the DON to attend, tell her the feelings of the staff and see if there can be a way to work this out. If not, there are other jobs that do remember staff get sick too.