Umm...I will have 47 residence to care for !!!!!

[BigB]

I am oreintating as a new grad for the 3-11pm shift. I have found out that I will be doing all the meds, charting and treatments for all 47 of them. Is this even legal?

The unit manager doesn't help with anything on this unit, and the last two people hired on the station both quit after 2 weeks!!! How in the world can a new grad ( me) that doesn't know any of these patients, or have any prior LTC experience get all this done? Meds I could do. But add treatments, charting, and doing the new admits..NO way! I am starting to think I went into something that I won't be at very long.

After a couple days of orientation I am learning a little about the paperwork but it seems like such an uphill battle. Any advice from TLC works?

[allantiques4me]

Thats totally not fair to you or your patients.Im sure youre a conscienscious nurse,do you really want to be part of that substandard care environment?? You really should try to find another area of nursing.Good luck. You could find a job you truly love.Why settle for less???

[azlisa]

As a CNA I admire you for the challenge. Perhaps (maybe) you can ask the CNA's for assist with treatments? Not that they do them, but two skilled people can make dressing/tx go quicker. I work with nurses that need 2 CNA's to help with would packing a patient. Just a thought. Lisa W

[RN BSN 2009]

its your license!

[kmwlpn]

it is long term care facilities like this that give all of them a bad name. no, this is not realistic or safe as far as that goes, especially if you have any alzheimers rsdt, with sundowners...when will facilities learn,,,,patient care first....money second.....good luck.....and don't hold one facility for all, because they are not all that way.

[mairehRN]

When my unit is full, I have 46 rts. Right now we have 37. I work 11-7 alone. In fact, all 11-7 nurses work alone on their units at my place. We used to get 4 aides, now they cut us to 2. It's dangerous.

3-11 used to have 2 nurses and 5-6 aides. Now they work 1:3. 7-3 should have 2 nurses, most days its only 1 and 3-4 aides. It's criminal. The new management team and DON say we haven't justified need. Just did up a paper for the DON with info to show our acuity level on my unit. I've heard the talk before, "if the acuity levels show it, we'll get staffing","document, document, document". Well, we've been documenting our asses off and its gotten us nothing. Sorry to say it, but its the picture of LTC lately, and yes its too much, but until legislation is passed on proper staffing ratios in LTC, it'll be the norm. And legislation is focused on the hospital setting, am I right nurses? Or am I out on a limb here? I haven't read anything lately about LTC safe staffing ratios.

[Cmariehart]

Where I work I have 40 residents on my unit. I have another nurse who does, tx/drsgs, TF, and charting. I also have 3 aides/orderlies too. But I do our "lovely" no holds barred med pass for all 40, and there's nights that I have a hard time with just that.

But to have that many residents by yourself I'm sorry and I wouldn't do it unless you get some help...

[GLORIAmunchkin72]

I work second shift and on a normal night (or evening, depending on how you want to call it) we have 2 Qs (qualified med aid), 6 cnas and 1 lpn and 1 rn on the healthcare part of the nursing home. The 2 Qs do all the medpass except for the bloodsugars and they all do all the txs except for invasive ones. And there are nights when our nurses get swamped with paper work and telephone calls. Imagine what it would be like if they didn't have 2 Qs to do their medpass?...

[BigB]

I did leave LTC and it was the best choice I could of ever made. My stress level, BP, and atitude is much better now. I actually love working in psych nursing. The ratio is night and day what LTC was.

[shnaples]

Why do nurses put up with these kind of working conditions? If we all stuck together and said, "enough is enough" maybe things would change. Maybe like if we had a strong union!

[jjjoy, LPN]

Why do nurses put up with these kind of working conditions? If we all stuck together and said, "enough is enough" maybe things would change. Maybe like if we had a strong union!

Many nurses don't put up with these conditions and then the facilities blame their inability to find willing nurses on the "nursing shortage" and lobby for overseas nurse recruitment.

Also, most places have the same understaffed conditions so even if you quit one place, the next likely won't be better. There might be a few really well-staffed facilities out there and I'd imagine the turnover would be low.

[Twix]

Men, I should show this site to one of our nurse that always complain about her work load on 2p -10p shift, she has 20 patients, 2 CNAs and a CMA, 5 patients are independent on ADLs and every now and then ,gets a new admit, and still complains to me, ( I relieve her 10p-6a ) that she did not get her TX done, which would be a total of 7 tx, minor ones, since rehab does the rest.Too bad she quit because our DON told her that she needs to do her PRNs and not the CMA, but all she needs to do is assess them ,since a lot of times she does not even know what time her PRNs were given......Cape, hope you are not looking for grammar errors.

[BigB]

Why do nurses put up with these kind of working conditions? If we all stuck together and said, "enough is enough" maybe things would change. Maybe like if we had a strong union!

I wondering this too. In California, the inmates get better medical care then the elderly. Why is this....the inmates have filed lawsuits and the elderly are not well represented. It's sad to see. I wish over-worked LTC LVN's would make a stand together and get the media involved and aware that the staffing ratios are outrageous and unsafe. We could get the angry family members in on this too and hope change would then come about. For LTC to improve here the pay has to go up and the ratio / pateint load has to go way down.