Recently I had a situation at work where it was time to give report to the oncoming nurse, and the unit was understaffed for the night, and there was literally no one to give report to. This was entirely preventable and forseeable days in advance, but neither my manager nor the charge nurse did anything about it. I did see the issue a few days prior and brought it to the attention of my manager, for the sole purpose of telling her I was NOT free to help out for any part of the oncoming shift. In the end, I was faced with the choice between forcing the charge nurse to take a truly unsafe load of critical ICU patients and staying overnight, which I had already refused to do. I ended up giving in and staying overnight for the sake of the patients.

My manager did give me part of the next day off and say thank-you, but to me, it wasn't enough. Have any of you ever been in a similar situation, where there literally was no one to give report to? If so, what did you do about it?