I realize that sending a health professional home due to illness, no matter how mild, is a strain on all of the others left, but all patients are immunocomprimised. Yes, someare more than others, CA patients, HIV, etc, but if a patient is in having an outpatient surgery they are compromised D/T the surgery. If a patient is admitted D/T pneumonia, they are compromised. If a woman is in haivng a baby, she is compromised. Why should the healthcare workers be so concerned about staffing to place patients in danger of contracting an illness that could potentially hinder their recovery from what ever. Unfortunately, some people will abuse this and call out for no true illness, but is never worth placing a patient at risk.

Egads..........what is a simple cold in a healthy person can quickly turn to something fatal in an elderly or immunosupressed person.  But yet, workplaces often make it difficult, if not impossible, to call in sick.

Witness my workplace:  If you call out on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you must have a doctor's note.   Who in their right mind is going to run to the doctor for a cold, or even the flu?  Sometimes you find yourself ill, but without even $20 for that copay!  Sometimes, even on a weekday, the supervisor will refuse to accept your call out!  One nurse I know had not had a period for two months, and then WHOOSH, she was flooding.  They expected her to come in anyway!  (She refused, and got a write-up). 

My workplace knows that if I call in sick, I'M SICK.  Though that won't save me from pen-happy supervisors.

In 2004, in the span of three weeks, I lost my grandmother,my father, and had a serious car accident--I had a head injury, couldn't remember my home phone number, etc etc.  I took 3 days for each funeral, and two days off after the accident.  Guess what I had presented to me two months later?  Yup, a write up, for taking too many days off in a 30-day period.  I was so livid I tore it up in the supervisor's face; she just re-wrote it and it went in my file anyway.  I went to the DON, who was entirely unsympathetic and said, "No exceptions".  I know that example is a bit off-topic but it's a good read, hey?

I don't understand it.  There are those who call off twice a week and get nothing done to them, but I, who am never late, do my work properly, and rarely call out get punished for things beyond my control. 

People should not be at work sick...........but sometimes you have no choice.

I guess I can figure out the reason for the Fridays, but what is up with the Mondays, a hangover maybe.

Cheers Sevo - Tim, R.N.

No moon phases in this one.