Response to general topic are RNs being overworked and underpaid. For all the heath care adjustments that are abeing made and the added responsibilities RNs are assigned which used to be done by ancillary staff, darn tootin we are underpaid AND overworked. Yesterday I worked an ER where, due to short staffing, we tried to close down four beds because we had no nurse to care for the area. As the morning progressed and the ambulances kept rolling in and the patients kept coming in, it became impossible, We were starting IVs, drawing blood and placing patients on cardiac monitors in the halls all the while still being responsible for four other patients in the regular "bays". Our ER attending felt the situation was "dangerous" and requested to go on ambulance diversion but was overruled by administration - they said "no". I had one patient with numerous medications waiting for a tele bed on q 1 hour accuchecks (which maybe got done q 2 hours), an overdoes on a hall cart who I had to remember to stimulate to make sure she was still breathing, and in the "bays" I had an 80 year old female with the dizzies and frequent bedpan needs, a young woman with a pneumonthorax needing chest tubes, two others I can't recall their needs, an asthmatic in the hall in a wheelchair was getting nebulizers on a portable O2 tank and cared for the by the "charge nurse" who was trying to flow the rooms. What flow? We were log jammed and the people kept coming in. All this and the poor staff nurses get paid about $16 an hour. As a registery nurse, I get $26. This won't make anyone rich but maybe famous if we get involved in lawsuits because someone has a poor outcome because they didn't get "proper" care in the ER. Sometimes nursing sucks - yesterday did - and the patients who were there got cheated. This is in a hospital that couldn't get enough support to unionize a few months ago -- gee -- wonder why????
