Nurse Laid Off In The Middle Of Surgery
When Dean Health System in Madison, Wisconsin announced last week that it "planned to 'immediately' lay off 90 employees," it wasn't kidding around. One of them was a nurse who was pulled out of surgery to be told the news.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel doesn't say if she then returned to finish attending the surgery, but Dean Health admitted to the paper that interrupting her during her job just to give her the news "violated medical protocol." We guess her manager had a long list to get through.
"Nurse called out of surgery and laid off " [JSOnline] (Thanks to Erik!)
(Photo: SarahMcD ?)
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way to potentially put someone's life at risk
That's fucked up.
A friend of mine had been reporting back to me on a day to day basis about firings at her office, and none of them were ever on Friday. I thought that was really weird.
@Yankees368: Realy? Because according to the Pauls, it's better to just "fix the glitch." They've found it's best to avoid confrontation.
@Yankees368: My company does it on Thursday, then gives you Friday off (paid). That way you still have the weekend...
If that was me under the knife, I'd hope she DIDN'T go back in after getting news like that!
we've been laying off people on fridays to correspond with the end of the pay period. lately, they've just been sending people home on any old day.
Layoffs here are Tuesdays and Thursdays, by 1 PM.
@OmniZero:
I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
@pecan 3.14159265: The whole Friday thing is cold and cruel and tends to burn bridges. IMHO, it should only be done if they consider the person to be a risk or if management is really that disconnected from the personnel.
My wife's old company would take everything personally. If you quit, it's an insult and they call security. They work in contracting and tend to do business with a lot of similar companies. Would that make you ever want to do business with that company again? Same concept as laying off someone on Friday and having security escort them out...You never know if you will run into that person again. The pencil pusher you just laid off could be a head negotiator on a contract your company has to win to survive later down the road.
@Yankees368: And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...
I watch House, nurses don't do anything anyways. Except look concerned and hand tools to the real doctors.
Yeahhhhh, i'm going to have to disagree with you on thatone. She's kinda been slacking off at work lately.
But Obama fixed the economy! What's going on?
Ouch.. When a hospital starts laying off direct caregivers, you know they're in pretty bad shape.
@Yankees368: Clearly the holy grail would be to have the entire script of Office Space portrayed in a long string of replies. WE CAN DO IT.
Also, "flair."
@Yankees368: From what I heard, that is the worse. They tend to spend a lot of time brooding over the weekend,drinking w/friends who feel sorry for them, telling them how they shouldn't have been fired, then return. If you let them off during the week, it allows them to search for a job while businesses are open. Like I said, just what I heard.
@Radi0logy: And don't call the Dr.'s when a patient diagnoses himself that he's about to code, and strike causing Cuddy to be all pissy....
But please all, he is JUST KIDDING. We don't need a ton of responses about how nurses actually DO the great job(s) we know they do. We know, and House is a TV show.
I hope they don't do something like this to an ER nurse while she's still on shift, they're so busy that it would be very detrimental.
@docrice: Unfortunately, if you're off on Friday, you won't be able to participate in Hawaiian shirt day.
@Applekid: Though it would mean forfeiting the right to complain that kids aren't saying anything substantive or original to each other in their electronic communications. Are we prepared to accept that burden?
The most surprising part of this story is that nurses are getting laid off. You keep hearing about how in demand they are, and in my mid-sized city alone, the online classifieds contain something like 200 ads for nurses.
@bovinekid: This is a for-profit health care network owned largely by physicians. It might operate a little differently.
If you are going to lay someone off, it should be done once the decision is made. It's wrong and selfish to keep people on for no reason. They'll need all the time they can get to file for unemployment and search for a new job. It's a selfish move made by my company on occasion. I need to give you 2 weeks notice if I'm leaving, but you make me work until Friday and then fire me on the spot. That's b.s.
@ThinkerTDM: "But Obama fixed the economy! What's going on?"
He hasn't fixed the economy that your precious W. ruined. It'll be probably a decade before W's mistakes are finally corrected.
Hey, at least they were decisive. My company is the the (secret) process of being bought out, and they won't tell us anything. We are, however, being told that open enrollment for benefits has been canceled and that we need to "tidy up" our work spaces.
Being told straight up is a lot better than being treated like a 4 year old.
Where is my cake? I did not get a piece of cake last time and I was promised I would get a piece this time
I'm not usually litigious, but if I was that patient, I'd try to find a way to sue them.
@Hadoken3: The Friday lay offs *usually* happen because Fridays are paydays.
I am in agreement, but employers seem to have the warped opinion that if an employee knows they're going, they will stop being productive. Which, is probably sometimes true.
@pecan 3.14159265: Same here. In the past, lay offs have happened on Fridays (paydays) but the last few have happened at random times. And the employees have been executives.
@Scoobatz: Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions.
When I was laid off, it was on a Monday. My former boss told me that they knew since the previous week, but didn't want to tell me on Friday because...
"I didn't want to ruin your weekend."
Gee, thanks! That makes me feel a lot better.
I cannot believe what losers we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary.
To Radiology: You obviously know nothing about the REAL world and health care. Nurses do all the work except surgery and doctors get all the glory. My step daughter is a nurse and works her ass off helping people. And only a moron would base reality off of a tv show. It's funny: I remember a time when health care jobs like nursing were the only jobs that never got cut. Where I live there are two nursing programs and they just pump out nurses because of the 'high demand' for them. Evidentally that may not be the case anymore..
@bovinekid: Nurses are in high demand, yes, but there are different levels of nurses and their experience. Hiring five nurses just out of school may not be as valuable as hiring one nurse with 10 years of experience. And surgical nurses are a whole other concept, because there is a different skill set involved. Some nurses spend most of their time in surgeries because they like it, or are more experienced in it.
We tend to lay people off on Fridays. Statistically, there is less chance of incident on a Friday.