Told to clean room

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Last night we were getting plowed under with admissions, 4 nurses, 1 CNA, 32 patients, no unit clerk, paper charting, moving patients to different rooms, and the supervisor had us clean a room. Ok, so first I argued and he told me to do it. Went in the room, clean bed, and my colleague took saniwipes and wiped things down. Later he called and told us to move another pt and clean the room. Patient is MRSA, we have no access to mops etc and this time I totally refused. Not only were we dangerously low staffed, but it was over the top wrong to order us to do this. No housekeeping at night. Oh BTW, I have been there three yrs and was never told to do this, but other nurses and the supervisor said this is not unusual. Oh yeah, this hospital is one that is closing. I can't wait to leave. :down:

Would you want your loved one in this room?

Specializes in Med/Surg; aged care; OH&S.

The OP was obviously placed in a difficult situation - it had to be done by someone and there was nobody else around. Some of my thoughts on cleaning tasks ...

Nurses should not be cleaning, full stop unless there's danger to a patient or anybody else. Nurses are not housekeeping staff or cleaners, nurses are health professionals. Frankly, it isn't about being too proud or thinking you're better than anyone, it just isn't our job.

I consider personal hygiene cares to be a nurses job - while I am doing those cares I am building a rapport with my patients and doing a physical and psychosocial assessment of them, and I am helping them, which is a privilege - this is totally different to cleaning a floor or a room.

I am sick of nurses being expected to do housekeeping or cleaning duties while other health professionals wouldn't do the same. Would anybody ask a doctor, social worker or physio to clean a room?

No. Didn't think so. And yet those professionals are also caring for patients.

I'm sick of people in the white collar, corporate sector saying things like "nurses are to posh to wash", and "university nurses won't do menial tasks" etc - well why should we? Would they? It's amazing to me how people will get on their high horse about this type of thing; it's clear to me nurses are not respected by so many people.

The more nurses do this kind of thing, the more our colleagues and community will think that is what nurses do - clean. It is bad enough that other people don't know what nurses do as it is, it is bad enough that the invasive, responsible, sometimes harmful to our own health, highly skilled tasks we do are behind closed doors or curtains; imagine family members walking past a room and seeming a skilled nurse cleaning a room - that is unacceptable to me.

I'm not saying I never cleaned a bed if necessary, or wiped up a contagious spill for infection control purposes, or got a cup of tea for a patient or family member who was upset - I never did these things often though and I stand by that.

TBH, I've always thought nurses were their own worst enemies when it comes to promoting our profession.

Specializes in Psych.

I would guess that the OP was quite busy given the situation. I wonder what kind of nurse could have 8 patients and find time to clean and make charts and answer the phone, etc without compromising patient care? Patients aren't in the hospital in the 21st century for respite. The supervisor can clean the rooms.

Once again, the nurses have to be "team players" but who comes to help when the nurses are overwhelmed? My hospital is using the overload of the "flu season" to ask nursing staff to do housekeeping duties, since housekeeping is having to work harder with the increased patient loads. Of course, nursing staff is having to deal with the same increased patient loads, and nobody's asking the housekeeping staff to help us out, to say do our 8am med pass for us. But if nurses complain, we think we're "too good" to clean. Well hey, let's ask the medical staff to chip in and help the housekeepers! The surgeons can go in and clean the OR after surgery to help out! The pulmonologists can clean swine flu rooms!

It always starts as a small occasional request, peppered with a guilt trip over "we all have to work together." Soon, it becomes hospital policy that everything they can pawn off on the nursing staff becomes the nursing staff's responsibility. And nurses are enabling it by guiliting each other into playing along. At some point, we can't be team players and do everyone else's jobs because there's going to be no time left to do our own jobs, and nobody else is going to be a team player and do our med passes, assessments, charting, and managing the patients' care.

How many "Failure To Rescue" incidents have to happen while a nurse is busy cleaning, transporting, hunting down equipment/supplies, etc. have to happen before nurses will band together and refuse to do everyone else's work at the expense of our own?

.....and by doing these things, we are taking the job of housekeeper or other, that would be damn happy to have a job!!!

Specializes in Psychiatry.

if the "wonderful" administration of any given healthcare facility thought it would be possible to add cleaning rooms to an overworked nurse's job description, I'll bet they would. More $$$ in their pockets.

They wouldn't get away with it in my facility, at least. We are union (thank goodness).

To the OP: Hang in there, the end is in sight.

Best,

Diane

and we wonder why we have such a problem with our image.:rolleyes:

leslie

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