[mcknis]

Originally Posted by grubby98

at my facility they like to pull icu nurses all over the hospital to cover for call ins and leave us short 90% of the time, the other night i had a fresh open heart been out of the OR less than an hour and 2 other pts. another nurse had a patient on CRRT and Balloon Pump and had to take another patient while they floated 2 of our nurses out becuse another floor didnt staff enough for the weekend. if things dont change im outa their in a few weeks do to not wanting to risk my license anymore.....

Even as a miniscule student, I know well enough that this is definitely NOT SAFE! I am sorry that you had to put up with this because this should not be tolerated at all! Open hearts need to be 1:1 until stable then can be advanced to 1:2

[MommieAmanda]

I work in small hospital. We have 12 ICU beds, 4 PINS (Post Intensive Nursing Services) beds, 48 M/S (tele available) beds, plus L&D and ED. This past weekend was bad. At one point we had 11 patients and 4 nurses - and no tech. You do the math. Unfortunately, having 3 patients has become too common. I do the best that I can with what God gave me. It's all about prioritizing.

[NurseCutie]

The sad part about it is that I work on the day shift. It takes long enough to do things the way they chart there (ancient Meditech system). They're constently short and we have a lot of Nursing Home pts with tons of meds. They don't have CNA's on the unit because they say we're not busy enough. No one helps. It sucks!

[Surgical Hrt RN]

Ok nurses hold on to your hats for this one!!! The hospital that I left is currently staffing nurses 4:1!!! Can you believe this! Hence, why I left! I just spoke with a nurse that still works in that unit and she told me a horrific story....so here it goes!

The unit had 20 patients in it the other night. There were 5 nurses scheduled. They called the manager and said we are way understaffed you are going to have to come in and take patients, it is unsafe. His response.....I work 12 hours days I am not coming in you are going to have to make it work. Now it's my impression that as a manager you have 24 hour accountability correct?

So, since he refused to come in, the nurses were left with 4 ICU patients a piece. Later that night an obese patient had a bowel movement, a very large bowel movement. It required at least 4 nurses to help turn and clean the patient. However, all 5 nurses went into this room. That left the nurse's aid out on the unit alone to watch monitors and patients. Anyhow, one of the patients that was in the unit had a knee replacement and developed pulmonary edema. He had received Lasix but had not responded well and was placed on Bipap. To make a long story short, the aid heard the alarm going off on the Bipap and went into the patient's room. There she found the Bipap mask and the patient hanging over the side rail. THE PATIENT WAS DEAD!!!!!! All the nurses that were scheduled that night were in the room attending to the man who had the huge bowel movement and no one was left to watch monitors or alarms, except an aid who was not qualified to do so.

Now why the aid was not in the room and nurse was left on the floor I will never know, but the point to all of this is the safety issue involved with a nurse taking 4 ICU patients. Three patients is becoming the norm more and more. Next is 4 patients. Where do we draw the line? We as nurses need to refuse assignments such as these and stick together to ensure patient safety. After all WE are our patients greatest advocates! I love nursing but we seriously need some changes to occur and fast. People should not be dying due to staffing issues. I am willing to bet this is not the first story of its kind.

[interleukin]

Too bad you hadn't called the director after the manager refused.
Now only you guys and the manager are accountable. The big fish are always in the "dark."

[Surgical Hrt RN]

I totally agree with you! However.....Thank God I was not working there anymore when this incident happened. Things like this happen all the time though. Things really need to change. As I mentioned before, nurses are patients GREATEST advocates. I know one thing for sure....if I had been working that night I would have called "safe harbor". I worked too hard for my license.

[Michigan RN]

I used to work on a Progressive care unit. On that unit we typically get 3-4 patients. Sometimes I would get two vent patients who could be rather large, drips, all sorts of crap going on. Anyhow, we had this one patient who was trached and he had been on our unit for a while before being discharged. Well, he was discharged but came back because he had too many secretions. The guy pulled his trach out three nights in a row. So on his final day, because yes it was it final day, he got smart and pulled off his leads and then pulled his trach out. The nurse that day was busy with one of her other patients and no one at the desk had looked at the monitor to see that the leads needed to be replaced. Needless to say, after the nurse was done with her other patient she walked into this guys room and he is dead. So what was management's solution? Hire more staff? Nope, they put someone at the monitor who would call the nurse if leads were off...very annoying because they never called the aides. So glad i'm not on that unit anymore.

[armyicurn]

Where I work is currently 1:1 or 1:2 depending on acuity. Each team has a min of 12-15 RN (days) and 11-13 (nocs) plus some LPNs and techs. This is in a 24 bed ICU. Lately, we been getting the short end of the stick by having to go help the ED or other floors...

[TX_ICU_RN]

There is NO WAY I would work with true ICU patients with a nurse to patient ratio of greater than 1:2. If we had overflow patients that were less sick...then I would take on more patients as long as patient safety was not compromised.

[lisacammel]

Wow, I thought I worked at the cheapest hospital on the planet!
They like to say--often--"we allow for 2:1 nursing when able" but the "budget" is alsaws 3:1, and now that it is pneumonia/COPD season, we are all getting burned out. We have an outbreak of accinobacter, and the whole unit is in reverse isolation, for almost 6 weeks now, making it even more stressful.
one of the most frustrating aspects is that we just got magnet status last year, which all the urses I work with are convinced that status was "bought" and is a joke.
Don't get me wrone..I love my job and the MICU--it's just a VERY stressful time of year right now.
Sorry, had to vent for a minute!