Wages At Ssm Hospitals

[pattycake]

hi,

all you st. louis nurses...did you know the ssm hospitals had a program this summer and were paying some nurses $40.50/hr? the program is now ending and the wage is dropping drastically...made a lot of the regular staff angry...any comments? of course, i think all rns should be paid that wage on a regular basis for what we do...IMHO

[KenyaNurse]

i was nurse at ssm and was pretty upset by the summer program.i was barely making 23/hr but they could afford nurses for that much. i tried to get a raise with no success so i just quit:angryfire

[pattycake]

don't ever expect a SSM hospital to back up their nurses...they are all talk...i was surprised they had this type of program...but i can assure you, working it was pure hell if that's any concilation...

they are all about money and a "veiled caring about customers" which is a joke...i would NEVER go there as a patient...their doctors don't know what they are doing...you as a patient are basically a guina pig...they "candy-coat" for the patients, but underneath, the patient is always getting short-changed...

[WDWpixieRN, RN]

I don't know that I'd go so far as to bash SSM and their physicians and nurses, but while I was there this summer the area where I was working was up in arms about that summer program. I don't know any kind of management can think they could so heavily advertise such a program and not have it promote resentment.

I think the fact that St. John's was able to bust their union doesn't bode well for the rest of us. With all the nurses in the STL area, I don't understand why they aren't standing up for more -- money, staffing, etc. Such a shame....

[1studentnurse]

I don't understand why they aren't standing up for more -- money, staffing, etc.

It's too exhausting, that's why. I'm working at SSM and I'll be looking elsewhere by the end of the year. Staffing (taken care of by an outside company called Avantas) is in such disarray that things are getting to the point they are unsafe. People who have been there for years are retiring just to get out of my unit.

A lot of people view the union as dangerous. Not having adequate staffing is dangerous enough. Our unit has no charge or secretary after 8PM so all the work is dumped onto the nurses. Some facilities also dump pts who are not ready for our unit, too, which creates work and takes us away from people we could be working with. Our managers are just worried about the Press-Ganeys and they don't really get it.