Why Can't Hospitals Offer Shifts Other Than 12 hr. 7 to 7?

[neonurse97]

I am a single parent wanting to be home with my kids at a decent hour every day. I have been working 7p to 7a for the last 5 years. I am tired of it. Why do most hospitals only offer these horrendous 12 hour shifts?.. These hours are hard on families. I would love to be able to work 8 to 4 in a hospital. Why isn't that an option? Hospitals could offer 8am-4pm...then 4pm-12am and 12am-8am and maybe the nursing shortage wouldn't be so bad....

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

I'm not a nurse yet, but if you really think about all the stress that nurses are under to begin with, adding more hours to a day hardly seems to help matters. Just my opinion from a stressed out point of view.

Depends on how you look at it. Some nurses work 5 8-hour shifts a week, They are dealing with hospital stress 5 days a week with only 2 days off to themselves. Others, like me, work 3 12-hour shifts a week, and I only have to be at the hospital 3 days a week and have 4 whole days off to myself. To me, it is MUCH more stressful to have to go in to work more days than to just stay for a longer shift on the days I do go in. Make sense?

[catlady, BSN, RN]

To me, it is MUCH more stressful to have to go in to work more days than to just stay for a longer shift on the days I do go in. Make sense?

Yup. Aside from the days off, etc., think of the mental and emotional investment when you take report and start working with your assignment. I'd much rather only have to get myself going three days a week than five.

The facility I just left (LTC) only offered eight hour shifts, but the workload was so impossible that many nurses were there nearly twelve hours, every day. Some nurses were putting in sixty hours a week without a lick of scheduled OT. Management refused to hire more nurses because of the budget. ????