My friend is looking at a job in an area hospital. She is currently working in a LTC facility. One concern is the fact that hospitals are known to cancel a scheduled shift, usually for low census. How often does this happen, in general. Over a years time, how much time will be lost to cancellations, a week, a month, or more?
-Tori
This question was asked in the nursing forum section.
Jane says
Hi Tori!
I wanted to give my input on this situation because I have seen it happened. Here is my observation. When I first started out working as a floor nurse in a hospital (I worked progressive care), I was called and told to stay home only once. They put me on-call until 12:00 noon (was on-call from 7-12) but I never had to go in. The reason I was put on-call was due to low census. But this happened VERY rarely.
However, when I took a job in a department that was very specialized doing heart procedures, my shifts were cancelled ALOT! This bugged the nurses because we had to have so many hours to keep our insurance and of course pay our bills. I have noticed over the years, especially since the new healthcare laws, hospitals are getting stricter about calling nurses off if census is the least bit low.
However, I don’t think a nurse that works in a LTC will really have that problem but many of the patients are there for the long term. I think being called off would be super rare. My mom worked in a LTC for 20 years and was never called off.
Bottom line, if you work in a nursing area that depends on outpatients or is specialized (like does procedures) than yes you will be dealing with cancelled shifts.
I hope this gives you some insight. Anyone else have anything to add?