Well, OK. Another problem at St Raphael's Hospital in New Haven, CT. Again, has anyone come across a similar situation? I worked 7P to 7A on Friday night. Saturday is the last day of the pay period for me. I wanted the charge nurse to sign my time sheet and she said she is not allowed. So I called the nursing supervisor and he said, and I quote, "I can't sign your time sheet. I don't know you and can't verify that you actually worked the hours you have written on your time sheet". In other words, for all he knows I might be trying to rip them off. After an entire week of working there I was told that the only person who can sign time sheets is the unit coordinator who, of course, works Monday to Friday and is not available to sign time sheets on the weekends. The time is due on Monday. Since I wasn't scheduled to work either Sunday or Monday I asked what I was supposed to do about getting her to sign the sheet. He suggested I fax it to her and then have her fax it back to me at a kinko's or something and then send it to my company. Either that or I could come in on a day off just to get the one person in the entire facility who can sign to do it. Seemed like an awful lot of running around just to get my time sheet signed and not something I have run into in 10 years of doing agency work. Preferred Healthcare says it was up to me to find out about this unusual arrangement. Perhaps so. Or perhaps this woman, on the first day of orientation, could have let me know about their off the wall procedures for paying travel nurses. I've never come across anything like it. Everywhere else I've worked as a per diem agency nurse or a travel nurse I have been able to get my time slip signed the day I worked. Not a week later and I certainly have never been expected to go in on a day off just to get a signature. I could just scream. This is the same place that tried to get me to do about 2 hours of self-learning packets at home without paying me or the other travelers for our time. It was only when they were asked, and I insisted, that they relented and said they would actually pay people for their time! Big of them! I'm so aggravated.
I would immediately call your unit director at the hospital and your travel coordinator. This problem does arise now and then, but the hospital should have policies in place for weekends.
Hopefully, you can get out of this place. They seem to be nothing but problems.
