Our DON has admitted that morale in our hospital has decreased over the last two years and is now rock bottom. We have been critically shortstaffed and an attempt to address this was to hire a lot of New Grads. Due to the resignations recently it turns out we are still really shortstaffed and struggling to cope, but now it is worse because there are so many New Grads and we just don't have the time or ability to support them.
They get three shifts as supernumerary, then they are expected to function as any other nurse on the team. I've found that in the last two weeks the LPN and I working with the New Grad have seen a huge increase in the load we've had. Instead of three of us showering six patients each, two of us are doing up to 16 every shift. One shift it was 17. The New Grads are always keen to give out medications, but when they average half an hour per patient so that meds for six takes three hours, then a shower takes them the rest of the shift........what are you supposed to do?
I am told we have to support them. When I hear the New Grads are complaining to the DON about the lack of support they are getting I feel extremely frustrated. I know I can't be there to hold their hands every minute, because I am buried trying to do the work they can't do as well as my own work.
I suggested to my manager that perhaps we should forget about the New Grads giving out meds and focus on their time management with ADL's. Once they have mastered that we can start them giving out meds. She said we can't do that as they would really complain.
One New Grad has already upset the LPN's by telling them it isn't her job to do showers, her job is to tell them what to do. That might happen elsewhere but it doesn't happen here, there aren't enough LPN's to do the ADL's. She was the one who took half the day to give meds, then the rest of the shift to do one shower, after attempting to get the LPN to do it when I wasn't around.
The next morning the same New Grad didn't turn up for her shift. An hour into the shift my manager rang her at home. She said she'd slept in and now that she was awake felt like a day off so wouldn't be coming in. When asked if she'd told the Supervisor she wouldn't be coming she said she hadn't, but she might do that later.
We are really getting flak about our New Grads not being supported, and how they were hired to help us and we aren't treating them right etc. The nurses who already had extremely low morale just feel like this is yet another thing to knock them down.
I can't see a solution for how to get the ward to work with all these New Grads, and how to give them an experience where they feel supported. Obviously taking on the majority of their workload isn't an acceptable solution for them either.
FWIW, nursing students come out here and say they have a grand time. We determine within a few hours whether it is safe to let them loose or not, then have them on the ward as a functional member of our team. Unfortunately they are often counted as team members by admin, so we are forced to work our students hard. I always apologise to them, but they seem to like feeling needed.
I guess it is easy for us to do this when we don't have the fear of litigation like you do in the U.S. No patient has ever been harmed and our students usually leave after four weeks, able to take on the care of six patients.
We just don't seem to be able to do this once they become New Grads.
