Nurse/Patient Ratios

I worked on an acute assessment, general medical and care of the elderly ward that was 35 beds. We had 2 RN's per shift. It nearly killed me and ruined my family life.

I cannot believe the lengths that management was going to in order to avoid hiring nurses and staffing that ward. Patients suffered horrifically. They even got rid of our care assistants and replaced them with 16 year old "cadet nurses" who weren't even allowed to take vitals. The vast majority of our patients were on pages of meds and required total care. The mobile ones were confused. The "cadet nurses" were put in the same colour uniforms as the RN's.

It just gets worse with the intentional short staffing by management and the response of the British newspapers, hospital managers, and public has been to hand out "dignity cards" to the nurses.

It is obvious that basic care is not being met. But no one seems to connect the dots and see that these nurses are overwhelmed. They are constantly being accused to "not caring" and being "too posh to wash". Can you imagine taking care of between 12 and 18 acute medical total care patients?

The dignity cards are going to be handed out to the nurses to remind us that dignity and basic care are our jobs and that it is not very nice to leave people waiting for the bedpan for more than a minute. They are also asking the public to remind the nurses that patients suffer when they are not fed. Sometimes on that ward I had 15 feeds simultaneously by myself with acute admissions during meal times.

It's unbelievable.

Med/surg Cardiac- our ratio goes as high as 1 nurse/ 10 patients depending on census. Too much for primary care nursing, esp. when you consider the the acuity of care- & that these pt's are considered critical. & most have complex cardiac & multiple medical problems.

My facility is LTC and Sub-acute/rehab. On the LTC floors it's about 1:30 and on sub-acute it's 2:31 plus a nurse at the desk to do admissions. Right now the census is low but those are the max number of patients. The LTC floor is not easy, especially having many patients with behavior issues, half the floor is diabetic and having to constantly redirect the wanderers to keep them out of trouble.

I tell you what, some of you need to go to the media to let your community know what kind of care (or lack of ) they are going to get if they come to your facilities. Since I have been on this site I have been shocked at the numbers of patients that some of you all have to take care of. This is something that needs to be taken into a public forum. These staffing standards should be reported to your board of nursing and to your state department of health. This is a MAJOR safety issue. You guys are really placing your license at risk. I work med surg also, 34 bed unit, medicine and orthopedics. Our ratio is 1:4 or 1:5. I am the charge nurse on 3-11 and I NEVER ALLOW them to give me more patients than we can deal with. No nurse on my shift will EVER take more than 5 patients.

I am interested to know what states you work in and if your facility if for profit, not for profit, or public facility. Feedback Please!!!

I work on a surgical/telemetry unit and it's 5:1 on daylight and 3-11 with 2 CNA's. I work nightshift and if the floor is full it's 7:1 with 1 CNA. It's extremely busy!! If we have a patient that needs a sitter, our CNA has to do it. There have been many nights that I've come in at 7p to have 6 patients right from the start - with 4-5 of them being fresh post-ops. We've complained to our manager since she's the one that decides the staffing ratios and she "claims" that she's unable to change it. Oddly enough, she's the one that changed our ratios twice in the past 6 months. I guess she can only make them worse, not better. She says it's all due to our unit's budget - so I guess money comes before patient safety?