poor staffing and new grad

[anji]

hi. i'm a new grad (bsn) and just finished my 3 month orientation at a hospital. I am thinking about already changing jobs however. i do not want to do this but the hospital i am at is so short staffed that i could have to take care of up to 14 and 16 clients and frankly i am very uncomfortable doing this. Not only are we short staffed (and our staffing office won't show us the staffing grid) but the doctors are on a "war-path" against the nurses which i'm sure comes down to being understaffed. I am soo stressed. I do not want to be put in a place where someones life is at stake or i'm a law suit waiting to happen. any suggestions??????? thank you.

[lmgnurse]

I too have been insituations that I felt were unsafe. I had only been out of RN school for 4 months and was left on a Medical/Oncology unit as the only Rn for 27 patients, the remaining 2 LVNs and 1 CNA were "floated" to my unit. The only thing that saved me was that I had been an LVN on this unit for 2 years and knew the unit well. I had also only gotten about 2 weeks of my 6 week orientation R/T short staffing in the hospital. They felt that since I was familiar with the unit as an LVN that I should be o.k. Now, 21/2 years later I feel that the floors are still unsafe with 15-16 patients per team, we have a VP of Patient Care who feels that we need to "work smarter, not harder" and virtually all of the nurses thar I worked with on my unit have fled the scene. I am guilty as well for I left the patient care area for a position as a House Supervisor, still stressful but in a different way. I empathize with the floor nurses and try to allow them to vent when possible. The other respondents are right, you must take care of yourself first because a burned out nurse is able to help no one. After 1 year away from the floor I am beginning to miss patient care and am considering working per diem at another facility to keep my skills up. I feel that it would be too difficult to separate from the role of House Supervisor in my present facility and am looking now for a facility that shares my vision for patient care. lmgnurse

[jbresolin]

I just returned from the St. Capitol in Sacramento Cal. where labor leaders were going to meet with the governor to persuade him to sign prop 394 the "safe staffing" bill. Fill out ADO's and lobby for change, the only effective way to regulate the buisness people is with legislation at a state level. Nurses are working in a profit-driven industry. It is up to us to care and caring starts with yourself. 394 passed the state senate today.

[ForMoe]

RED ALERT---Call/E-mail everyone!!!

ABC 20/20 story is on for Nov 26th

as told to me by Silvia Johnson herself

Pass it on

Read this from Silvia;

Thanks. I hope a lot of people will see the story. The AHA president is

already doing damage control -- interestingly, not by alleging that our

story is wrong. That would be a stretch, given the number of nurses I've

heard from.

Best,

Sylvia Johnson

ABC 20/20

[shee1a]

Im with you and glad you left that job. I did the same thing. I was told to stick it out and refused to believe that this was how nursing was to be. I am now on a floor where I have good ratios. 1:4 on days, with two aids and 1:6-8 on nights with 2 aids.

Question what are your LPNs allowed to do?

At the last Hospital I worked at they used them as aids at this one there are no LPNs in the hospital?

[tynes]

the poor staffing of nurses is the way hospitals tell us, we have no respect for nurses and will do them as we please. the nsg profession is not respected any more by most businesses. Office staff get more respect. If nurses would refuse to work with the extra high patient loads the hospital would be forced to put on more nurses. LPNs may not know as much as an RN, but they can assist an RN with the patients. when i first started nursing in 1984 LPNs had 4 to 5 Pts and RNs suppervised 8 to 10 Pts. also there were 2 aides to every 6 Pts to bathe,and take vital signs. so you see nsg it not a respected profession any more. If nurses do not stand up for them selves, we will soon be back in the old days when one nurse had 20 to 30 Pts to care for alone and had to bring in uneducated women to help. RN and LPNs need to refuse to take over 5 to 6 Pts alne without a nursing assist. its the only way we will gain our respect back. Tynes

[the bridge]

First of all, I hope you are still in the nursing profession. Of course, if you are not still in the nursing profession, it is obvious why. Nursing, as it exists today, is designed to burn people out. The rule of the owners of the various places where nurses work is this: use as few nurses as possible to get all the work done, regardless of the impact that it will have on the quality of the care being given to the patients. I have been an RN, BSN since 1996 and it has been, at times, a very difficult career. Does anyone remember Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio, RN, PhD? She organized a Nurses March in Washington DC back in 1995 and at least 10,000 nurses showed up! I went to the next Nurses March and fewer nurses showed up, but it was still an inspirational event. She also used to publish Revolution: The Journal of Nurse Empowerment. I think it has been the goal of both the corporations that own hospitals/nursing homes and the government to reduce nursing to be nothing more than an easily exploited blue collar job. But in the end, this will hurt the community and the nursing profession too. The only thing left for nurses to do will be to ban together in blue collar-like unions that will go on strike to get what they want. This will cost the corporations more money, and they will pass this expense onto the public and the government. It is time for nurses to get together and form a high profile, professional organization that is capable of influencing both the political structure of Washington, DC and educating the public about the hazards of a deteriorating nursing profession in America. And it is amazing to me that the nurses who commented on your struggle to be a good nurse do not appear concerned about how difficult it is to be a truly good nurse. A good nurse protects their clients. We can use the word client because a patient will wait to be taken care of. In the modern world, patients have become customers who demand to be given professional care. It is a sad thing to see how the rank and file of the nursing profession have allowed themselves to be beaten down by these "health care" corporations whose only concern is the bottom line.

[the bridge]

First of all, I hope you are still in the nursing profession. Of course, if you are not still in the nursing profession, it is obvious why. Nursing, as it exists today, is designed to burn people out. The rule of the owners of the various places where nurses work is this: use as few nurses as possible to get all the work done, regardless of the impact that it will have on the quality of the care being given to the patients. I have been an RN, BSN since 1996 and it has been, at times, a very difficult career. Does anyone remember Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio, RN, PhD? She organized a Nurses March in Washington DC back in 1995 and at least 10,000 nurses showed up! I went to the next Nurses March and fewer nurses showed up, but it was still an inspirational event. She also used to publish Revolution: The Journal of Nurse Empowerment. I think it has been the goal of both the corporations that own hospitals/nursing homes and the government to reduce nursing to be nothing more than an easily exploited blue collar job. But in the end, this will hurt the community and the nursing profession too. The only thing left for nurses to do will be to ban together in blue collar-like unions that will go on strike to get what they want. This will cost the corporations more money, and they will pass this expense onto the public and the government. It is time for nurses to get together and form a high profile, professional organization that is capable of influencing both the political structure of Washington, DC and educating the public about the hazards of a deteriorating nursing profession in America. And it is amazing to me that some of the nurses who commented on your struggle to be a good nurse do not appear concerned about how difficult it is to be a truly good nurse. A good nurse protects their clients. We can use the word client because a patient will wait to be taken care of. In the modern world, patients have become customers who demand to be given professional care. It is a sad thing to see how the rank and file of the nursing profession have allowed themselves to be beaten down by these "health care" corporations whose only concern is the bottom line.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Nice job handling the situation and taking yourself to somewhere better!

[embarrasingfield]

I for one will not be in this field long. I'm tired of the abuse in response for my sacrifices.

Its been a very productive nineteen years, but I'm outta here.