Altoona Regional hiring nurses
Preparation for state overtime law will see about 80 positions filled before July 1By William Kibler, bkibler@altoonamirror.com
Altoona Regional Health System will hire up to 60 registered nurses and about 20 nurse aides in the next few months to gear up for the state's mandatory overtime law.
The law prohibits the use of mandatory overtime as a routine staffing tool and goes into effect July 1.
"They're trying to be pro-active," the hospital's RN union president Paula Stellabotte said approvingly, "instead of ignoring or resisting."
The hospital has about 850 RNs now, among 2,400 employees, including both full- and part-timers, said Monica Liebal, the hospital's clinical recruiter.
Additional nurses will help managers in setting up staff schedules, Liebal said.
The decision to hire more nurses has nothing to do with the April 2008 unionization of the RNs by the Service Employees International Union, Stellabotte and Liebal said.
Liebal doesn't think she'll have a problem filling the RN slots, despite a long-running national shortage of nurses.
She's posted the jobs internally, placed ads in the newspaper and has gone to nursing schools and colleges to recruit.
She has received more than 120 applications.
She's reviewing them now and plans interviews for late June and early July.
A year ago, filling the slots might have been difficult, but the national economic difficulties have loosened the worker supply, as hospitals around the area cut back, people who planned to retire thought better of it and those who planned to go part time have stayed full time to keep benefits, Liebal said.
"A lot of nurses, because of the economy, want stability," she said.
The easing of the shortage has made special incentives to attract applicants unnecessary.
Those incentives would have had to be negotiated with the union anyway, Liebal said.
Starting wages will comply with the union wage scale, taking account of experience and qualifications, Liebal said, declining to provide specific amounts.
The ability of the hospital to attract the necessary candidates for the expansion reflects on the area's good highways and lack of traffic-jam bottlenecks, said Marty Marasco, executive director of the Altoona Blair County Development Corporation.
They allow workers to travel in reasonable time to jobs from up to 60 miles away, he said.
It helps make up for the much sparser population here than in big cities, where workers might take twice as long to drive a far shorter distance, he said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.
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OooohNoooo
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06-15-09 8:03 AM
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Union or no union, laws or no laws, nothing is going to change... MArk my words, ARHS and most hospitals will find a way around it...
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Weezie
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06-15-09 7:40 AM
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This a good time of the year to find new grad nurses for this law to be implemented but the same problems will still be there when they get frustrated and upset then leave. What about ARHS ailing budget recent and subsquent layoffs of some nurses. It is a shame as a previous employee that it takes a law to change the long dangerous hours that nurses at ARHS and many other facilities across the country work. Kudos to lawmaker and the SEIU for pushing for the importance of not only nurses but for patient safety and quality of care that I hope will improve at ARHS where mandation was the norm on many units as a way of covering for open shifts or call offs.
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KlausVR
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06-14-09 8:02 PM
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The unions do not imply that this is something new ... they have been fighting this particular battle for years. It's just that they FINALLY were able to help do something about it.
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OooohNoooo
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06-14-09 6:29 PM
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Folks that become RN's know what the jobs entails... Long hours, little thanks and sometimes, a lack of a personal/family life. It comes witht the territory. Patients don't get sick between 9 and 5. Yet the unions implies that the conditions are something new. This has been an issue for quite a while. Can't grow nurse on trees... ARHS is not particularly a nurse friendly facilty... Most faclities aren't... they bend over backwards to kiss the DR's butts... Go figure...
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KlausVR
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06-14-09 6:23 PM
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This can only be good for the patients. Thanks to the unions for getting this much needed law passed! Shortage of nurses ... nah ... just a shortage of folks who will work under oppressive conditions. Maybe this will help the situation.
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