Nurses need to Take Care of Nurses-6 cont.

Here are a few ideas;

1. Pay nurses commensurate with the years of experience they have and for the advanced skills they may have, making them the competent nurse, that all patients want at their bedside, i.e. balloon pumps, intracranial lines and other invasive monitoring, life-saving drips, just to name a few.
2. Instead of reprimanding nurses for using sick time, frequently after working many hours of overtime. When an amount of overtime is put in by a nurse, give them a free sick day, that won’t count against the often ridiculous limits set by many institutions (you’re only allowed to be sick 3-4 times a year in many settings).
3. Free meals for those working overtime and may have been to busy catching up on sleep to make a meal or get to the ATM.
4. If you want one color for uniforms in an institution, let that institution provide the scrubs, etc. Just think how many viruses, etc. may not be taken out into the community.
5. Very few nurses take all of their vacation time, if they take it at all. Work with your community to get some good deals for your staff, i.e. vacation plans, dinner certificates, etc.

These are just a few ideas; there are so many things that can be done to make nursing better for nurses, and therefore only making it better for patients. If there were more advocates making nursing a better place to be there would be less need for patient advocates. That is a nurse’s primary role and should be at the forefront of any decision made, not something that over time has been made more and more difficult to achieve due to the shortage and the stresses that have ensued.

Nursing doesn’t have to be Disney World (the Happiest Place on Earth), nor is it expected, but everyone should be able to look forward to coming to work, not wondering how bad it is going to be and how much you probably won’t get done.