Three fulltime nurses and a medication aide who once held secure jobs, now stand figuratively on the trapdoor of the gallows, shaking our heads in astonishment at finding ourselves here and wondering how the hell we're going to get out of this predicament.
It's not like we got fired. We're just not on the schedule anymore. Our facility's census, which can be as high as 135, has been hovering at around half that for the past year or so; now, thanks in part to Medicare cuts, our management has slashed staffing basically in half. In the blink of an eye, I went from 32 hours per week down to eight, with only a minimal chance for more during the course of any given week. The decisions were based on seniority; another nurse even lower down the totem pole than I has been placed on PRN status, and still another has been let go entirely, while the CMA's hours have been cut to one 7.5-hour shift per week.
Wait, it gets even better. This is a small town surrounded by other small towns. There are few nursing jobs open, if any, and most of what is available is either part-time or on-call..........no health insurance or other benefits, of course. That is bad news for anyone, but especially for a nurse with a bad knee (that's about to be operated on) and a couple of chronic health problems requiring daily medications.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not giving up THIS easily. But I can already see the possibility of winding up in a job where, instead of asking folks to rate their pain, I'll be asking them how they like their eggs.
If I were a better person, I would foreswear bringing up politics here; but since it's my blog, I'm going to say what I think. And what I think is, if this is the kind of "help" our government officials meant when they claimed that healthcare reform would benefit everyone, they can put it in a place that's accessible only by endoscope.
I was never unemployed when I was "helping" myself. Does anyone really think they have plans to "help" all of us who are losing our jobs, especially those of us in later life who find ourselves starting out at square one again? At fifty-one, I'm not even sure how many more times I should HAVE to start over; I certainly don't appreciate being forced to now.
But I have no choice: I can't live on one shift per week. I also can't afford to retire, not that I really want to (although I'd give my collection of hundred-dollar work shoes for a 3-day-a-week job that would let me eat AND pay all the bills in the same month). So I've got to polish up a resume that hasn't seen the light of day since 2006, dust off my one pair of dress shoes, and try to arrange my face AND my thoughts in more attractive lines before hitting the pavement.
This is, of course, not what I'd expected to be doing at this stage of life. And I'm alarmed at how rapidly my self-confidence has dissolved in light of these developments. Suddenly, I'm horribly depressed and anxious.....and here I'd finally gotten comfortable with who I am and where I fit in this world; I'm also experiencing that sickeningly familiar rollercoaster ride after having found the right balance between life and work. And while I'm reasonably sure I can find another job, the pickings are so slim here that I'm afraid I'll wind up taking anything just to put food on the table.
Just in case you're wondering: No, going back to school is not in the plan book. I'm still paying on my old student loans, and I have absolutely NO desire to tackle O-chem and statistics. Moving out of the area is also not the answer; our roots are here, and so are our grandchildren. I would be willing to travel a little to get back and forth to work---I've done it before---but with gas prices near $3 a gallon, I'd rather not if I can avoid it.
Now for the absolutes: I can't handle more than the very occasional 12-hour shift. I can't work Med/Surg for any length of time......both are far too hard on me physically. Nocs are not really an option either; I had trouble with mental fuzziness and confusion when I worked 11P-7A in my early 40s, so I can't even imagine how I'd perform now. And the types of nursing I will never, ever do in this lifetime are NICU, corrections and mental health/psych---I think I'd sling hash at Denny's before taking a job with critically ill babies or in any facility that locks the staff in with the inmates.
Other than that, I'm open to suggestions. ? Don't mind me if I just "hang around" for a while and see what you all come up with!
