The end of doubling overtime pay for nurses

The Corona agreement as of December gave 200 percent extra pay to nurses who took extra shifts. Nurse Henriette Myrseth Olsen was able to earn half a month’s salary by accepting three additional shifts at Åstveit nursing home in Bergen.

changed overnight

Now the extra pay has faded, and so has much of the incentive many have to work after working full-time, she says.

– All through February, all through March, all through April, people said yes. People wanted to stand happily, but now I don’t understand.

Within a few hours of Monday morning, four of her colleagues answered “no” to more work than their assigned guards. As long as they got double overtime pay, and tripled overtime pay on vacation days, colleagues sacrificed time with family to run to work.

Most people are done with the epidemic. Do you also not understand that the bounty of the epidemic must end?

– Yes, but the problem in the health sector is that the employment problem did not appear when the Corona pandemic came. Nurse 60 patients. You can imagine driving. You often come home with a bad feeling in your stomach.

closes rooms

The nurse shortage affects large parts of the country. In Linsvik in the municipality of Orkland, for the first time, several rooms are empty at Hamnehaugen Healthcare Center due to a shortage of nurses.

Health expert Elizabeth Walseth is a safety representative. Showed on TV 2 five closed rooms due to the lack of three nurses.

– Here’s one of the rooms we’re currently closing. It’s sad, but it’s also sad that there are no more nurses. They are struggling across the country to get enough nurses. Wages must be increased.

– The temptation to succeed

Employer Anders Jystad, who operates the Orkland Home Care Service unit, emphasized the fact that pandemic funds have addressed employment problems.

The Corona Agreement was a temptation that worked when people had to give up time with family and other leisure time.

Leader Lill Sverresdatter Larsen of the Norwegian Nurses Association is asking employers to take it seriously.

The additional payment lasts for a certain period. And with lower wages, they won’t have to work overtime when they see their co-workers get sick from stress.

Larsen says legal duties mean nurses are sometimes required to work overtime.

What we see happen when we don’t make the nurses work overtime by volunteering, that is, by getting them well paid, is to force overtime. Then there are many who say they can’t stand it and have left the profession.

Breach of wage negotiations

This weekend, there was an interruption in wage settlement in the state after the two diverged far apart. KS is waiting for mediation, but there can be no strike no later than May 24. This makes Henriette Myrseth Olsen more concerned about the employment situation.

– Summer seems so dark we have a shortage all summer. We meet summer with a lump in the throat,

The Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority informed

The host of the NSF flagship store in Tromsø, Daniel Brooks, says the pandemic agreement was a backslash of appreciation that mobilized employees to take extra shifts.

– We struggle with high absenteeism disease. It’s risky in the emergency room and health center.

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He has notified the Norwegian Labor Inspectorate of poor working conditions in what he says is a small-scale emergency room where 30 per cent of inquiries are answered after a two-minute notice. Sick leave in the home care service is more than 20 percent, according to Brooks.

carrot

At Åstveit nursing home in Bergen, Olsen continues to search for nurses who can fill shifts.

She tells us about the big impact that the additional payment has had – until May 1st:

– It was a carrot.

We should be met by something other than applause and cheers. It was very easy to get people to work, but Sunday was the end. Sacrificing free time and family time to stay in a workplace when he is underpaid is not acceptable.