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Hi All; How likely is it for a RN NURSE to be sent home because there are no patients to treat??? Regards

Okay, you got my attention

Did this really happen or are you just asking?

I guess it is possible as they can't pay the nurse if there are no patients.

Depends in what specialty the nurse works in. I've been a nurse for 25 years and there have been occasions nurses are sent home due to low patient census. Surgical floors may see a decline during holiday time due to people not scheduling elective surgery, but a medical or cardiac floor may see an increase due to stress, holiday eating patterns causing disorders to flare up, and unfortunately, family members that admit "grandma" to the hospital with vague symptons just to get a holiday from caring for her themselves. So it usually balances out to where the areas of low census send their staff, called "floating" to the floors that need more nurses due to high census. I did travel nursing and went to Florida for the winter where the influx of snow-birds increased the census, but if a hurricaine was brewing and headed toward that particular town, census would drop as people left instead of staying for their pre-scheduled orthopedic surgery. For budget reasons, they would not just divide the remaining patients amongst the nurses, each nurse:patient ratio would need to remain as close to norm, which means nurses go without their hours. I am now in home care, and if one of the clients is hospitalized, we have to call the nurse to cancel their shift, as obviously there isn't a shift to go to.

Some facilities dump patients during holidays, and its really the physicians that do this.. I worked in a free standing inpatient hospice and every christmas and thanks giving we would get swamped. Doctors don't want to deal with it at that time so they would push for hospice where they regularly would hold on to the patient to keep their income higher, even though the patient was hospice appropriate all along.

Certain hospital units often unload during the holidays and some nurses will get sent home.
This will sometimes spur increased admissions to nursing homes as well as hospice.

In rural areas it is more likely that nurses will get sent home due to decreased census.

Let me tell you... most nurses welcome getting sent home unexpectedly, its a grueling job and a fee day feels like a blessing.