[Erbn Girl]

From Northwest Indiana soon to be in Southwest Missouri!

[AnnieRN]

I am in a similar situation. I work in ICU at a community hospital in central New York. Our unit has held census at 7 beds due to short staffing(we have a 10 bed unit). The only reason we are holding at 7 patients is because the nursing staff demanded it. We currently have 6 full time positions open. At one brief time our manager felt that we could handle 10 patients. It became unbearable. My coworkers were working 50 to 60 hours a week. I then called the state to find out what could be done to close the beds again. I was told that the state only gets involved when ther are documented patient care issues, for example, decubitis ulcers from lack of nursing care or med errors. They did say the would call tthe hospital to find out how they were dealing with our short staffing.
several days later we are holding the census at 7 patients. Our staff has been told that they are actively recruiting but we never see adds in any of the local or regional papers. I don't know what the answers are to these problems but I have become more vocal at work about refusing to accept patients when our staffing does not support the patient population. Only when Doctors are told that their patients cannot be cared for will they wake up and realize that there is a staffing problem.

[Joe,RN]

I read your posts! We are here to help and make sure your stories are heard! You can report neglect and abnormalities anonymously. You may want to look back through the messages posted under this heading. We have made many suggestions and debated confidentialty at length. I have been told that my identity would be protected, but I should provide my name to ligitimize the report. I have done this and felt reprecussions. Maybe it was just a lucky guess on the part of administration. I don't know, but if you do decide to identify yourself, be ready for retribution. As I have said before, I have no problem with being identified as a patient advocate, but this should be your choice! Welcome! We continue to grow in numbers!

[barton]

To: Linda, anything goes, and Annie,

If you've read even a few of the posts here, you'll see that most of us appear to be in the same boat.
Some have written legislators and the ANA and so forth.
NOW, many of us HERE have joined efforts, and are writing a column primarily about understaffing, and we plan to send a regular newsletter to legislators under the name of our column.
Please e-mail Joe or me and tell us your stories-----and join our group!
Thanks,
barton

Maybe I missed it , but where do short-staffed nursing homes fit into this bill? Many of these acute care patients end up in short-staffed nursing homes.

[Joe,RN]

Jen,
Short staffed nursing homes fit in the same as every other facility. If your facility is short staffed, then patient safety is an issue, it does not matter what type facility it is!

[Joe,RN]

Jen,
Short staffed nursing homes fit in the same as every other facility. If your facility is short staffed, then patient safety is an issue, it does not matter what type facility it is! This is just a start, we have a long way to go. It will take some time to address each and every problem in healthcare today!

[eliza]

Working in the VA, I note that the pt acuity / staffing ratio may EVEN be near adequate on paper....the problem I have is that the acuity numbers do not NO WAY come close to adequately describing the acuity of the patients. The system doesn't take hardly anything into account, or give credit for the majority of care needed (ie. #meds adm times per shift, # of iv meds, or resp tx's, or wound care, or complexity of either, nor ambulation, teaching, admitting, or turning, or even FEEDING needs...the list goes on).
It is so insufficient, and administrators, leaders shrug it off, as if "that is just the way it is", after 8 years in this system I still hope that it will change. I would love to see this system be more accurate, then we could prove our needs for more nursing staff. Until we do this, I do not see us getting more staff. I do not know how to implement this change...yet, I just had to voice my opinion and say that I haven't given up hope. Our veteran population deserves the best of care. I would be interested in advice, other's concerns, and ideas.

[LRichardson]

OOOOOOOOOOOklahoma here

[Joe,RN]

You know? Eliza, I have often wondered how nurse/patient ratios and acuity were established in VA facilities. I was in the Army as a corpman, did two tours and came out as a LPN. I had the opportunity to pull some duty in several VA facilities. This was (wow) 25 years ago and I am sure things have change dramatically. I have, more recently, visited friends who were patients at VA facilities and talked to some of the staff. I saw critically ill patients sharing rooms with patients recovering from minor surgery. One of the nurses stated to me that there was little distinction as to floor assignments. Patients were divided at shift start by the nurses themselves. Seems you could have two bad ones and three good ones or seven good ones or three bad ones and so on and so on. There seemed to be an air of complacency and lack of patient care. This may be biased because of my limited exposure to this environment. Oh, and I saw one RN on duty! Does this help you at all?