This past December, when the North Texas flu
epidemic hit, the nursing shortage became
painfully evident, the epidemic has subsided.
The shortage, hasn't it serious?
I mean, there's no there's no question about
it.
To deal with the problem, Ziolkowski University
Hospital in Dallas is making what some in
the industry call a bold move.
They're letting their nurses go on a nine month
work year with three months off.
By giving that flexibility, you keep your
employees very much more in that happy mode.
And that's a very good retention factor right
there.
Nurse Lillian Roney says the new schedule
sounds like the answer to a prayer for nurses.
It means time off for children, long vacations
or advanced college courses.
But more importantly, she says, for patients
it means better health care.
Eventually, most people at some point are going
to be spending some time in the hospital.
And if I were a patient,
I would want to know that my nurse
wants to be there, wants to be at that bad time
bedside and that she has had time for herself
and that she is now ready to come back and give
the best that she can to that patient.
The new plan does have what could be viewed as
disadvantages. For one thing, a cut in yearly
income nurses now getting paid for 12 months
work would get paid for nine months work under
the new schedule. And some administrators are
wondering if this could worsen, not
improve. The nursing shortage means you're
taking people
away from the bedside for three months out
of the year and someone has to come in and fill
that. Cherrywood, Texas, nurse five.
It won't solve the shortage in that sense
because you're going to have to have people to
cover for.