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2 more sleeps!!!!!!!!!

or if you're me 2 more night shifts...

Kitch wrote:or if you're me 2 more night shifts...

Snap!!

I finish 0900 christmas morning

no more work for me till january 2nd.

Fireman on a Storm wrote:

Kitch wrote:or if you're me 2 more night shifts...

Snap!!

I finish 0900 christmas morning

Double Snap!

I worked last night & got 3 to go. Then Thursday night off & back at it Friday night right through til the following weekend.
I may be able to afford Christmas this year, but I can't fit it in! And no New Years either!

sniff sniff

Timbo wrote:

Kitch wrote:or if you're me 2 more night shifts...

But you must sleep in between so 2 more sleeps for you too. Feel for you mate, working at Christmas, that must suck butt.

not really...

bah humbug and all that

Not sure I like the idea of 'Sucking Ass' EEEErrrrrrrgggggk.
For a lot of people the christmas shifts are a massive boost to their annual wage!
Shame I cant do the same...........bloomin MOD!

He is packing his sleigh

Timbo wrote:

Kitch wrote:or if you're me 2 more night shifts...

But you must sleep in between so 2 more sleeps for you too. Feel for you mate, working at Christmas, that must suck butt.

Try and get my head down for a bit if we don't have any shouts at work. But on my shift pattern I do 2 nights per week (2 days 2 nights 3 off) and try never to waist a day sleeping and just suffer it. Makes you feel sh1t but I find it's less bother than buggering up my body clock sleeping during the day!

Nah, I'm not complaining, Beamish. I put my hand up for all the shifts I get. Tonight's 8 hour shift is worth around $700

VTRgirl wrote:Nah, I'm not complaining, Beamish. I put my hand up for all the shifts I get. Tonight's 8 hour shift is worth around $700

VTRgirl are your shifts normally eight hours as I think I'm right in saying the nurse's over here working for the NHS (National Health Service) all have to work twelve hour shifts

Chris.

Most of the shifts are 8 hours, Chris (well, 8.5, but that only pay 8, except in mental health where you get paid for meal breaks as well). The city I'm in has one public hospital & two private. One of the privates does 10 hour nights, but everywhere else is 8. It's very family-friendly, I guess, for those trying to work hours around children, which most nurses do. So the norm would be around 6:30 to mid-arvo for an early, 2 til late evening for a late & the rest for night duty. Everywhere differs slightly with handover times.

I'd prefer the 12 hour thing, m'self, but I've got nobody to work around. I figure if you have to get dressed & go to work, you may as well clock up as many hours as you can at once, rather than go back there more often.

Very interesting VTRgirl. I can fully understand you would rather do a 12 hour rather than an 8 hour shift, especially as at the moment you don't have any other commitments to work around.

But looking at it from the patients side isn't it less likely mistakes are made when you're more awake and alert by doing an 8 hour shift, rather than pushing yourself to do an extra 4 hours Perhaps it depends on how stretched you are where you work, but I know at our local NHS main hospital the nursing staff there are under staffed and are always on the go. Another possible issue is age, you being fairly young and fit may say the longer (12hr) shift wouldn't be any problem. But say you were 20 years older and still doing the same job, you may think different and would prefer the 8 hour shifts that you do now Only my thoughts on the subject.

Chris.

sirch345 wrote:But looking at it from the patients side isn't it less likely mistakes are made when you're more awake and alert by doing an 8 hour shift, rather than pushing yourself to do an extra 4 hours Perhaps it depends on how stretched you are where you work, but I know at our local NHS main hospital the nursing staff there are under staffed and are always on the go. Another possible issue is age, you being fairly young and fit may say the longer (12hr) shift wouldn't be any problem. But say you were 20 years older and still doing the same job, you may think different and would prefer the 8 hour shifts that you do now Only my thoughts on the subject.

Some interesting points there & you're probably right about a lot. But people also need to consider the time off when the shifts are only 8 hours. Many doing "late earlies" finish at 11 at night & then have to be back to start again at 7am, so it could also be argued that the 8 hour shifts cause more errors. Probably much of a muchness in that regard.

I'm not sure what your "NHS" hospital is, but ours are all understaffed. It's a scary thing because the gov't's answer is to get more nurses qualified which means they're shortening the degree & cutting corners everywhere, resulting in any Tom, Richard or Harry (no offence to Toms, Richard or Harrys...) can get qualified & that's what's dangerous.

With the age thing, you're right with the 12 hours being no problem for someone "young & fit" like me (thanks for that, btw ), but again, it's the time off between shifts that doesn't allow a decent sleep. When you consider travel to & from, perhaps a meal & a bit of a slow-down, you'd be lucky to get 5 or 6 hours sleep between some shifts. In saying that though, I've pretty much stuck to night duty for the last 18 months & often only get 1-2 hours sleep during the day.

Nurse training is split between diploma nurses who get a bursary (not much more than the dole, less inc travel) and 10% degree nurses (who can get a student loan on top of their bursary).

The problem I found was that the Uni took on as many students as possible, 600+ (3 intakes per year) in response to a shortage a while back and to maximise the uni's income. The problem shortage was plugged by recruiting nurses from the Philippines, so the uptake of the newly qualified nurses is only 20%. Last I heard they were trying to buy off the Phillipino nurses, who are much harder working and less complaining of the deficiencies of the NHS than your average UK trained nurse, and ship them back. Plus may Hospitals are effectively freezing recruiting due to budget overspends. i.e paying the private sector back the equivalent of huge mortgage repayments for the new flashier hospitals, that have less beds than the ones that they replace, that long term come out of day to day spending budget.

Training is split between class room and placements over the 3 years for both diploma and degree student nurses, and they play a vital role in keeping up staff numbers, despite them not being officially counted as staff numbers. So they prop up labour intensive wards esp the care of the elderly and our often used to bolster the care assistants in situations where the qualified staff fear to tread i.e Diarrhea & vomiting outbreaks, MRSA and Cdiff outbreaks that are prevalent. Many students also need to work p/t on top of their placements so you end up working in a week 37 hours on placements, another 12 hours as an agency HCA AND somehow squeeze in a study, reading, presentations and essay writing for 49 weeks of the year unlike any other student course with in comparison has longer holidays and bank holidays off.

Lastly the lectures are generally burnt out nurses 30-40 years old and the best one we had was still working p/t time in intensive care, raisng her familily while teaching us anatomy and pharmacology but the uni forced her to resign when she said the lecture time needed to teach what was required were inadequate and that she really needed to teach 3/4 time to prepare and teach the necessary syllabus. As the academic entrance levels are piss-poor, and with the uni not wanting to have to get rid off any students you get a situation where they only test a student mathematical ability on an online test (easily cheatable) during the 1st year not prior to entrance. I'm awful at maths and passed with 85% and scarily the fail point was 35%. Scarey when you consider the nurse is responsible for drug administration and is the last person responsible to catch any doctor's prescription or pharmacy errors!

I qualified with a degree and was supposed to be on the path for ward manager in some NHS hospital care factory but left to work independently in the community which means I can ride my bike all day*:-)

* And what motivates me not to fall off is that the orthapedic ward is a place where some patients aren't able to be washed, dressed and linen changed sometimes until after lunch! due to the persistent understaffing and workload.
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