sleeping staff

fergus51 · Jan 23, 2003

We are allowed to sleep on our breaks, but not any other time.

OBNurseShelley · Jan 23, 2003

THe current job i Have is the 2nd time ive worked nights, i work 7p-7a, and both places ppl sleep.......usally just a 15 min nap here 30 min nap there....but occasionaly at my old job we'd take turns sleeping in recliners in empty rooms.....we all covered each ohter and never said anything to anbody about it.....i agree with who said "what happens on nights, stays on nights" We were available if a call light went off or if they phone rang or if a pt needed anything, it's not like we were abdandaning pts, we just weren't busy at times, i see nothing wrong with it, as long as you help each other out and one person isn't sleeping while everyone else is working, and you need to still take care of your own pt's even if you want to take a nap.

ChainedChaosRN · Jan 23, 2003

Can't see anything wrong with sleeping? Getting paid while you are sleeping? Does the terms embezzlement and negligence ring a bell? I'm sure there is not a thing wrong with sleeping if it is included in your job description. Can't imagine what the odds are that's ever going to happen.

Sounds like too much staff on duty if there is time to sleep. Obviously I feel nurses who sleep should have action taken against their license.

Dawn

parker in arkie · Jan 23, 2003

When I worked in LTC, a nurse was caught sleeping by a surprise visit from the DON. Said nurse was suspended for a week, during the time she was off, the dietary manager quit. The sleeping nurse was promoted to Dietary Manager upon her return.

In the year that I worked there, we went through 4 DONs and 2 ADONs. Most of the time, an LPN was acting as the interim ADON.

fergus51 · Jan 23, 2003

Originally posted by ChainedChaosRN
Can't see anything wrong with sleeping? Getting paid while you are sleeping? Does the terms embezzlement and negligence ring a bell? I'm sure there is not a thing wrong with sleeping if it is included in your job description. Can't imagine what the odds are that's ever going to happen.

Sounds like too much staff on duty if there is time to sleep. Obviously I feel nurses who sleep should have action taken against their license.

Dawn

Is this really so different from day staff sitting around reading magazines or whatever? I work L&D, and some days are quiet and people can do whatever they feel like as long as they are on the floor and available to take patients when needed. As long as the patients aren't put in jeopardy I don't see the real problem.

Nurse Ratched, RN · Jan 23, 2003

When I was an aide, a nurse hired in to the nursing home where I worked and decided after about two weeks that she could sleep from midnight to five a.m. Not even talking resting your eyes - talking full-burrito-mode-on-the-couch-in-a-bedspread-drooling- took-a-bomb-to-wake-her-up sleeping (she even set an alarm.) It was a small facility - only her, myself and another aide on nocs. Didn't respond to my less than subtle hints. She was deficient in a number of other areas as well. My beef was what happens if something happened to a resident in the dead of night and she's trying to think and wake up at the same time? Not to mention that her job included assisting me to turn and change bedbound pt's (the other aid was responsible for more mobile patients, but she had her own duties as well.)

I ratted her in. Boss said to call her that night after nurse curled up on the couch for her nightly nap - I did, and she got fired when boss showed up. No qualms. Patient safety was the big issue. She tried to pull her butt out of the fire by claiming I was sleeping as well (yeah, right - I was too busy.) I'm fine with people sleeping on their breaks - that's YOUR time and you should be able to do what you want. But if you can't sleep enough during the day to function at night, go get a daytime job.

Nurse Pepper · Jan 23, 2003

Where I work sleeping while at work is not allowed at all. If a nurse feels they need to sleep on their break then they are to do it in their vehicle. It has happened during a long spell of mandated overtime. The nurse usually has a cellphone with her and a coworker will call her when the break (hr.) is close to being over.

Stargazer · Jan 23, 2003

I must admit I have never understood this philosophy. It has never once occurred to me that it was okay to sleep while being paid to work. Maybe I've always worked very busy places, but I honestly can't remember one shift, ever, in 13 years of bedside care, where I couldn't find something pt-related or unit-related to do during downtime, even if that was just cleaning.

fergus, I do think there's a difference in nurses being awake and reading vs. being asleep. Awake people can monitor call bells and phones and keep an ear out for alarms, falls, fellow nurses calling for help. Asleep nurses may or may not be able to hear and/or react promptly to these things, and as Ratched pointed out, people awakened out of a sound sleep usually aren't mentally up to speed for several moments (or minutes).

2 nurses were caught sleeping on our tele floor on night shifts. "Everyone" knew about it at first and didn't say anything, but someone finally got sick of it and started walking it up the administrative ladder. It didn't have to go up too many steps before they were both fired.

fergus51 · Jan 23, 2003

Originally posted by Stargazer
fergus, I do think there's a difference in nurses being awake and reading vs. being asleep. Awake people can monitor call bells and phones and keep an ear out for alarms, falls, fellow nurses calling for help. Asleep nurses may or may not be able to hear and/or react promptly to these things, and as Ratched pointed out, people awakened out of a sound sleep usually aren't mentally up to speed for several moments (or minutes).

I can see this as a safety issue if this is a large nuber of nurses. But if one nurse out of 10 on duty has a nap and the others are still keeping an ear out for her, then there really is no safety issue. It doesn't happen often, but I did work one shift where we had ONE patient in labor for 11 of the 12 hours (had 2 admits in the last hour). That left 9 nurses with no patients. A few had naps. I didn't resent them for it. I will cover for people if they need 30 minutes of shut eye for their break.

As for not being mentally up to speed for a few minutes, I am like that. If I sleep it has to be for 8 hours at a time:). That's me, so I have never napped on night shifts. That said, I know nurses who get 20 minutes of sleep and are as fresh as daisies the second they open their eyes.

maggie7 · Jan 23, 2003

Happens all the time where I work. No one seems to care but me. But recently wrote 3 CNA's up for sleeping and they all got 2 days suspension. Next event to be fired. The behavior has been repeated and now I alone (the other 3 unit charge nurses tolerate this and I occasionally find them with head down at station asleep) will have to be the one to have a 62 year old women fired. Although I have told her that it would be her fault and not mine. Most CNA's in the building don't want to work with me because of this and other requirements I enforce, ie. lateness, leaving the unit in the AM 7-10 min. before shift is over, without even telling me, and on and on. Sleeping at work is my biggest peeve. And they expect it's some kind of right. I will tolerate sleeping on breaks and maybe an extra 5 or 10 min. over, but that's it.

I'm trying to decide if I'm even going to stay here or look for another job, so I am letting some of it go, but if it is repeated again someone is going to get fired. I am so tired of this.

ACNORN · Jan 23, 2003

I am outraged/embarrassed that we even have this discussion in my profession. Doesn't anyone see that sleeping on the job is STEALING? Your employer has HIRED you to perform WORK for a designated shift. Those of you who have such a poor work ethic need to do some other type of work where someone's life is not on the line. And those of you who enable this unethical behavior by covering for them are just as bad. I'd fire all of you. I can't believe this. This discussion is horrifying. How would you like to be the patient entrusting your life to people who think this is OK? Its not OK ever !!!

Enright · Jan 23, 2003

Thanks, ACNORN...I was beginning to think I was alone in my outrage. I always found it hard enough, flat out running, when a patient or a parent would say "oh, did I wake you up?" when I answered a light. But other nurses indicating this is sort of ok.... I ,too, am embarrassed for the profession.

I never worked a unit or a facility that didn't have something I could be doing 24/7. I was once the solo nurse on a small rehab unit....there were nights we had 1 patient who slept. I created a manual for new employees to use for our computer system. They still use it 10 years later! But sleep? Unacceptable.