Tell me about your L&D unit

[adpiRN]

I used to work on a crazy busy L&D unit at a large teaching hospital in a large city.

We were overcrowded and understaffed.

They do almost 7,000 deliveries per year, have 11 LDR rooms that are almost always full, 6 triage beds, 4 ORs, 4 PACU beds. Often laboring patients were placed in the recovery room because rooms were full and sometimes had NSVDs in the OR.

I just interviewed for a PRN L&D position at a smaller hospital in a small city.

Compared to my old unit it seems like heaven. Lol.

About 3,500 births/year, but about the same # of nurses per shift (15 on a busy day shift, down to maybe 7-8 on a slow night shift) and 16 labor rooms! Plus they have main OR nurses do their c/s on day shift, so that doesn't take nurses off the labor floor (my old hospital 2 L&D nurses were assigned to OR every day).

This potential new hospital seems to REALLY do 1:1 for labor patients. My old unit that was the ideal but most days it was 1:2.

So is this potential new unit nirvana?

Or was my old unit just that bad? (It was my first nursing job ever do I had nothing to compare it to, but towards the end it felt like hell...)

[perfexion, ASN, RN]

I work in a large metropolitan hospital. We have 10 labor rooms, 3 OR s, 3 triage beds and 4 PACU beds. We do about 3000 births a year. Tonight happens to be a busy night but we usually have 9 nurses plus a charge nurse. It's usually a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio.

I just interviewed for a small suburban hospital with 4 labor rooms, 2 ORs, and I forget how many triage and PACU beds. They only do 1100 births a year but they typically only staff 3 nurses plus charge. The manager said sometimes it's 1:3 ratio if one nurse is in the OR and another is on break or something. I'm kinda nervous about that. With 10 nurses I usually get a lot of help and support when I need it. We partner up for deliveries so each nurse can have a baby nurse. If a flyer comes in screaming everyone pitches in. Even on the busiest days we are a team and everyone helps everyone. I'm afraid that a smaller hospital means not only less patients (which is good), but less support and help. But actually I don't know for sure. I haven't started yet. That's just my fear.

[MotherToPeanut]

I work in a rural acute care hospital. We have one triage bed, three LDR rooms, and four postpartum/GYN surgery rooms. We also take other clean surgical patients or infusion patients when needed. We did 180 deliveries last year. Day shift is usually two but sometimes three nurses. Night shift gets two nurses.

[eylee08]

I work in a community hospital. We have 6 labor rooms, 1 triage, 1 OR, and 11 postpartum rooms. We recover our sections in the labor room they came from. We staff at 6 all shifts but can be put on call if it's slow, minimum of 3 nurses. We do about 800 births a year.