[NPInfo] Nursing Shortages revisited......

Tue May 6 13:11:59 PDT 2008

You need to go higher with that salary!!  An ADN RN with 4 yrs experience (no matter how good their English) can make $120,000 straight salary at hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area-- and with overtime, they can make MUCH more. As a NP at one of these hospitals, I made only $93K when I left last year and the reason I left was that the nurses were making so much more than me. I currently make $125,000 in my new job but that's STILL less than most of the nurses were making at my old job. We actually had nurses at that hospital who lived in other parts of the country, would fly in for a week, stay at a hotel, work as many shifts possible (including 7 days in a row of 12-16 hour shifts), collect their pay checks, and fly home for a week of sleep before repeating the whole scenario. And these weren't travel nurses-- these nurses were hired on as full-time hospital employees with benefits. They could make a fortune collecting SF Bay area salaries and living in a much lower
 rent area in another state. I rented a room to one of our nurses who lived in a huge new $240K home in Atlanta while making her $65/hr salary + overtime for 12-16 hour shifts 7 days in a row. Jobs in Atlanta didn't pay well enough to maintain her family's lifestyle and her CA salary wouldn't go nearly as far as it did in Atlanta (you certainly couldn't find ANY home here for $240,000!!!). 

  At the last Sutter (a large corporate hospital chain) strike in the area a couple of months ago, Mills Peninsula Hospital offered a salary package that would increase RNs salary up to $140,000 (I believe) and the union actually turned the deal down!! They stated that the money wasn't the issue....it was all about the retirement and insurance benefits at that time. Wonder if they really turned down the additional salary in the final negotiations <G>. CA already has mandatory staffing ratios in effect.

  I believe it was Contra Costa County that was recently written up in the SF Chronicle about the amount of overtime that county employees were raking in and a RN actually topped the list of the highest paid county employee when it came to overtime with total salary over $300,000!!! If I remember correctly, he was a part-time senior RN at the County jail and therefore had first dibs on any overtime-- which he usually took.

  Dena Galler

Calif NP <np at c-zone.net> wrote:
  Hospital practice Nurses in the San Francisco, CA bay area make $100,000 and
more with an Associates Degree & passable English...... they can afford to
live in a hotel/commute/etc.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Havens, Shelby" 
To: "NP Info" 
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 10:51 AM
Subject: RE: [NPInfo] Nursing Shortages revisited......

>
> I say let the foreign nurses have those jobs - I couldn't do hospital
> nursing again. The patient assignments are too heavy, the hours are
> terrible, and the pay hasn't kept up with the cost of living. Nurses are
> constantly being asked to do more with less. The average "length of
> stay" for RN positions in my town is two years. Nobody can stand it for
> much longer than that. Nurses don't get much respect. For Nurses' Day
> this week, we are being given Krispy Kreme Donuts. No joke. I am feeling
> a little bit under-appreciated.
>
> Nursing jobs may look good to someone from a third-world country, but
> from my point of view, nursing employment isn't so great. There are no
> raises in our agency this year, but they are advertising NP positions at
> a higher pay rate than what I am currently making. It isn't good for
> morale.
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Shelby Havens, ARNP
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: npinfo-bounces at nurse.net [mailto:npinfo-bounces at nurse.net] On
> Behalf Of Meg
> Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 1:21 PM
> To: npinfo at nurse.net
> Subject: [NPInfo] Nursing Shortages revisited......
>
> 2. Bill would ease visa shortage for foreign nurses
> Comment | Forward to a friend
> For some time, a visa shortage has limited the ability of provider
> organizations to hire foreign healthcare professionals. Now, however, a
> new federal bill proposes to provide visas for qualified registered
> nurses to work in the U.S. The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act would
> not only help address visa shortages, it also would provide a mechanism
> to fund measures to attract and retain nursing faculty, buy educational
> equipment and attract American students to nursing careers. The bill
> hopes to address the mushrooming shortage of nurses in the U.S., which
> is only projected to get worse over time. The American Hospital
> Association, for example, was reporting that hospitals needed more than
> 116,000 RNs to fill their current professional openings, far more than
> available in today's healthcare marketplace.
>
> To learn more about the bill:
> - read this Healthcare Finance News article
>
> Related Articles:
> Trend: How TX is coping with nursing instructor shortage
> Mid-career pros choosing nursing training
> Study: Nursing shortage gap closing
> Displaced auto workers offered nursing education
>
> ---------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> NPInfo mailing list
> NPInfo at nurse.net
> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
> *****************************
>
> _______________________________________________
> NPInfo mailing list
> NPInfo at nurse.net
> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
> *****************************
>
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG.
> Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.9/1416 - Release Date: 5/5/2008
5:11 PM
>
>

_______________________________________________
NPInfo mailing list
NPInfo at nurse.net
http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
*****************************