By Vicky Wedig
Staff Writer
The Walworth County Board will consider March 14 whether to allow nurses at the county-run nursing home to work 12-hour shifts.
The county’s Human Resources Committee and Lakeland Health Care Center Board of Trustees approved the ordinance change Feb. 22.
County Human Resources Director Dale Wilson said county ordinance prohibits employees from working shifts longer than eight hours. The change will allow Lakeland Health Care Center nurses to work 12-hour shifts, which is a common practice in the nursing field. He said Lakeland Health Care Center was having difficulty recruiting nurses who were working 12-hour shifts at other facilities and wanted to maintain that schedule.
Some existing nursing home employees also are interested in the longer shifts, which Wilson said benefits residents as well because individuals have the same nursing caring for them for longer periods of time.
The nursing home has 10.10 full-time-equivalent registered nurses and 68.38 FTE certified nursing assistants. CNAs also will be offered 12-hour shifts if the County Board approves the change, Wilson said.
Lakeland Health Care Center also is seeking approval to reclassify an RN unit supervisor at the nursing home to an assistant nurse manager. Wilson said the employee who holds the nurse manager position is retiring, so a unit supervisor will be promoted to a manager position, and an RN unit supervisor will be hired when the current manager retires.
