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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

ER staff should get combat pay

The thing about working in the ER is you will deal with all kinds of people. Some you won't want to deal with.

Like gangbangers, criminals, sex offenders, mean drunks, people who choose not to take baths or use deodorant. Whether you like it or not, all these people get sick and injured too.

I have taken care of people who, frankly, scared me. Sometimes you just get this sense that people are dangerous. That's when you do whats necessary and don't spend a lot of time in the room. You keep the curtain open and security nearby.

This is the part where you wonder why people who work in ERs don't get more money. Where else do you deal with not only "regular" patients, but all the people the rest of society avoids, moves away from, etc. This is where the danger comes in. Where there is danger, there should be more pay. Kind of like the military, when you are in a war of conflict area, you get hazardous duty pay. Thats what we should get in ER.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

ITA - there should be mandatory danger pay for ER staff who deal with daily violence, potential HIV infection, and a multitude of other hazards just by seeing people at their worst.

murgatr

Wildrow said...

Amen to that! By now, I should have a black belt in Judo for all the times I've had to grapple with violent drunks and belligerent clients to keep them from breaking furniture, attacking staff, or breaking furniture to use in the course of attacking staff .

Anonymous said...

Where do you think they go when they get admitted? The floor nurses then get to deal with them on a long term basis- days to weeks sometimes.

Nurse K said...

Last thing I want are a bunch of bimbos from med/surg coming to work in the ER for the extra money. Need people to self-select for ER to make it work. Hardcore. Zero bullshit. Smart.

midwest woman said...

Med/surg nurses are bimbos? Nice. Not.

Nurse K said...

Well where I work, it's like the 22-25 year old new grad/party chicks that work on med/surg with a few stray non-bimbos. Like OMG. Like so like can you like put an IV in for me like my patient needs like a site rotation and like OMG like can you hold that admit for 15 minutes while I like go to the Starbucks in the lobby? Like OMG.

Please hot princesses who have their nails done despite it being against policy: Stay out of the ER.

girlvet said...

nurse bashing aint cool

Tara @ Scrubs said...

I've heard ER duty is tough. Bless you for going through it!