Workload or Wages, which is more important?

[sfn2008, RN]

I came to CT on a travel assignment as a Tele Nurse in 2000. My lovelife has improved, but my career is another story.

This California gal was used to working with attending MD's and 4:1 Tele ratio. Not so in CT.

I see other posts asking about wages, and that is all well and good, but it is insane to give a 8:1 Tele patient ratio on the night shift when you are dealing with "Rule Out MI" patients from the ED. The kicker was that the night nurse was required to wake up all patients with QD medications for a 6 AM med pass. I lasted 8 months at that hospital.

Next hospital I had only 5-6 "beds" on the PM shift. Not all beds had patients in them because the DAY nurses had discharged pts and were waiting for PM's to do the admits. I wouldn't have minded as much but they were spread out from the front of the 25 bed unit to the back with only one of the two beds in the room being assigned to me. I begged management to implement practices that I had learned in other hospitals to improve patient assignments but what did I know. I was overwhelmed and then fired for poor performance.

I have to give tons of credit to the nurses that can handle this kind of workload, but I must admit, I do think that patient care suffers.

I worked per shift work in Derby and it was great, but in my opinion, the bigger the hospital the more insane it is.

I know that Home Care has overwhelming paperwork to deal with, but I am going to go back to Home Care because I can deal with working more hours (giving me a smaller hourly pay) as long as my patients get the care they deserve.

Question: do you think that there will ever come a time when nurses will ask more about patient care ratio's than wages when they inquire about a job? There is so much more to nursing than a paycheck.