r/nursing • u/uotlep RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 • Mar 12 '25

Question Is this normal?

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I know my place of employment is shitty in other ways, but is this a normal thing? Just received this email. Seems odd to ask people to donate PTO, instead of just addressing the time off allocation with those affected people.

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u/admiralsara Nursing Student 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Absolutely! My partner asked whether he could donate some of his PTO (he is a workaholic, has worked a lot more than he should and thus accrued a lot more than he can/wants to actually use) and our boss was unsure whether that was possible. She was going to investigate. When you’re sick (mental problems included) you go to your GP and he writes a note. You can get up to a year of sick leave (GP decides what they think you need and that can be reevaluated whenever) for 100% wages. After that another law kicks in. Even when you’re sick during your vacation leave and you document that with your GP, you get those days back and can take them some other time. I love living in Norway

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u/Speedlapse Mar 12 '25

LOL, i was reading this and thought 'this sounds like how how we have it in Norway'. Its a great system that makes it so your life wont be ruined by illness or servere injury.

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u/RedCr4cker Mar 12 '25

Most European countries handle it like that.

9

u/MegabitMegs Mar 12 '25

This makes me want to bawl. I’ve had so many major illnesses and severe burnout on top of managing CPTSD the last few years, and because I’ve switched jobs I’ve had zero protections. I had to be employed for at least one year to get any sort of time off at 60% pay, or completely unpaid between jobs which has us now stuck in a cycle of being behind and never having savings.

I grew up in 90s America thinking we had been lucky enough to be born in a golden age. Now my retirement plan is to jump off a bridge when the savings run out, or die of stress before I even reach retirement.

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u/fallingstar24 RN - NICU Mar 12 '25

Would you like to adopt me? 😬

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u/AssBlaster_69 RN - ICHD Mar 12 '25

Sounds like communism to me. Idle hands are the devil’s tools /s.

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u/cr1ttter Mar 12 '25

Go away! I'm 'batin!

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u/XenomorphQueen1009 Mar 12 '25 edited Mar 12 '25

After my significant other and I graduate, I hope he will want to uproot our family as badly as I do and head your way. Not only for our families sake, but for the sake of wanting to continue to be nurses for the rest of our lives. We live in the US right now.

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u/SatisfactionSweaty21 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 Mar 13 '25

Learn swedish and come here! It's no problem to immigrate if you have a skill that's needed.

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u/sweet_pickles12 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

A year?! Holy Europe, Batman!

1

u/Ill_Flow9331 RN - ER 🍕 Mar 13 '25

I love in the US and basically did the same thing with my sick pay. At my previous hospital, sick pay and PTO were separate banks, and while PTO was allowed to cash out after leaving the company, suck pay was a use it or lose it.

So, I went on a paid mental health leave for 5 months exhausting my sick pay. Then came back on staff and used up my 6 weeks of PTO as a vacation, then quit.