News spotlight: Some nurses fired during February snowstorm still fighting for their jobs
Nurse Leader Weekly, June 21, 2010
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Nurse Leader Weekly!
Back in February, the Washington (DC) Hospital Center (WHC) fired 18 staff members because they failed to show up for their shifts during the massive back-to-back snowstorms that hit the DC area. Now, nine nurses are still fighting to get their jobs back despite the fact that the other nurses have already been reinstated at WHC, the Washington Post reports.
During the two snowstorms in February, WHC was the only hospital to take disciplinary action toward those staff members who were unable to make their shifts. Now, the nine remaining nurses' actions are being reviewed by the hospital board as to whether each nurse will be reinstated. WHC is saying they communicated with staff "clear expectations to ensure uninterrupted patient care" and "stressed the need for all employees to plan ahead to relieve overworked staff."
Despite the fact nurses called to say the streets were impassable and one nurse had even called out sick with a stomach bug for three days, WHC accused them of "jeopardizing patient care" and terminated the nurses. However, nowhere in the hospital's weather-emergency policy does it state hospital staff will be terminated as a consequence of failing to get to work.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Nurse Leader Weekly!
Related Products
-
Strategies for Nurse Managers
Strategies for Nurse Managers is a 12-page monthly how-to newsletter that was created exclusively to help you save time...
-
Strengthening Nurse-to-Nurse Relationships:
This educational video will help nurses at all levels understand the issue of horizontal hostility. It provides the expert...
-
The Essential Guide to Therapy Management:
This book and CD-ROM set will help increase your effectiveness with practical tools and strategies you can put to use...
-
Quality Improvement for Nurse Managers:
This book and CD-ROM clearly outline a nurse leader's role in quality improvement and offer simple instructions to improve...
-
Agency Start Up Kit
From staff training to clinical documentation best practices, build a concrete foundation to operate efficiently...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- HIPAA Q&A: Answering service messages
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- E-mailed
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Are your workforce members texting PHI?
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Avoid the trap of probable diagnoses
- Arkansas woman convicted for HIPAA violation
- Q&A: Coding for protein malnutrition
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Searched