Let the nurse know that we are here to support her and handle situations like this for her. Then take charge of the situation so that the nurse can just concentrate on her job and remind facility staffing that this nurse was contracted to float between 3 hospitals within 10 miles of her housing location. Follow up with the nurse to assure them that we have spoken with the facility and they are working within the signed and agreed upon contract guidelines.
Let the nurse know that we are here to support her and handle situations like this for her. Then take charge of the situation so that the nurse can just concentrate on her job and remind facility staffing that this nurse is contracted & cleared for L&D, PP and newborn/nursery, but not NICU and is not safe for this nurse to float there. Bottom line: it is not safe for the nurse or the facility/patients for any nurse to float to units not cleared for or competent in, so we do not allow our nurses to work in units they are not competent in. Follow up with the nurse to assure them that they are not required to float to any units they are not contracted to float to and are not competent to work in.
Assuming in this scenario, that we did the housing arrangement for Nurse Roach, assure the nurse that we will do everything to work with them to rectify this situation to her satisfaction, up to and including removal to another housing situation. And even in the event that we did not provide housing, we would still support our nurse in whatever way we can---have helped people search and make calls to find housing. Just keep in touch with nurse to support in whatever way they need until the situation is resolved to their satisfaction. Unsanitary and unsafe housing is never the best way to start an assignment and can make all the difference in the assignment.
We would work with the facility to get her back on schedule after she has recovered her health (assuming she can return to work in Colorado environment safely & is cleared by her doctor to do so) and usually would just add those missed 2 weeks onto the end of the contract to make up those budgeted hours with the facility .
We do not send nurse to positions without WRITTEN offers and WRITTEN assignment confirmations from the staffing facility, so that we have names, signatures of who approved and copies of the facility contract that state the repercussions of a cancelled assignment by the facility without notice and what the facility penalty would be. Beyond this, we would, of course, work non-stop to find another placement in that area for that nurse to start asap, if the original facility still did not honor their commitment after being shown written assignment confirmation by their employee & their contractual penalties per their contract with us. I have not had this happen because we do make sure to get everything in writing to protect our nurses from bad situations like stated above.
We have found that great travel nurses have found that when they keep a file with all their items needed (updated resume, copies of certifications, vaccines, shots, titers, tests, physical, hospital evaluations/references/letters of recommendations, education certificate/diploma, etc) it makes each new assignment so much easier because they don't have to search for everything on each new assignment. a second key point would be to please be up front with your recruiter on what you want in an assignment and what is most important to you in your assignment, because everyone is different in their needs and their priorities and we can best serve you in your search when we have all the most pertinent information for you in particular. With these couple pieces of information, we can best search for our nurses until we find the position that best suits their needs at that point in their career.