How many patients are you assigned?

No, We Have 6 Pt. Per Nurse [including Post-op]. We Have Cna,s. You Need To Move On To A Place That Cares About Their Nurses.

From 11P-7A when I work, the staff nurses usually take 8 pts and the charge nurse will have 6.

I'm usually the only CNA for 30 ortho patients, and half of our floor are joint replacements most times, and lately most of those joints have been bilat knees. I'm lucky to still be alive. lol

I work days and we are assigned 6-7 patients working directly with a CNA who only has the same group of patients as I do. It is busy, but generally OK.
ETA: I just realized I already answered on this thread! I have been away for too long!

On our floor we have about 6-7 per nurse.

This is EXACTLY what I wish we could do. But I don't think we have enough aides.

I've done it once at night when the nurses called the supervisor and threatened safe harbor. Instead of an extra nurse which was nowhere to be found, each nurse had their own CNA.

Boy I really fortunate after reading some of your posts. At our hospital, we built a patient care tower about 3 years ago. We went from a 28 bed unit to a 55 bed unit. We deal with ortho/neuro/trauma/general surgical/plastics/ and then of course the overflow medical patients also. The floor is set up in "pods" or "neighborhoods", each with 4-7 beds. The absolutely most our nurses have is 7 patients, and thank God that doesn't happen much anymore. We are almost at our wanted staffing- we had to do ALOT of hiring when we increased our unit. In the 4 pt. pods, it is usually an RN and an NA, sometimes, the NA will have to be split between 2 of the 4 pt. neighborhoods, but that is still really doable. With the 6 and 7 patient pods, we really like to have 2 RN's and an NA in those pods, one RN takes 4 pts., the other takes 3. We are also trying to have 2 RN's in our 6 pt. pods also. Usually they will not have an NA then. They will each have 3 patients and do primary nursing care. Our hospital has recently decided to eliminate LPN's, we still have a few left that are in RN school, so we usually place them where meds are the heaviest. I MUST tell the staff on our floor how fortunate and blessed we are. With the acuity of the patients these days, you need to have the RN knowledge and expertise to deal with these patients. The patients that we are taking care of on regular floors are the types of patients that were in the ICU's 19 years ago when I began nursing. KUDOS to all the ortho nurses, it is not an easy job!!

Wow. I feel really grateful to be working where I am after reading all these posts. I work on an ortho unit where we also get some med/surg patients, and we have a 5:1 ratio on days and a 6:1 ratio on nights. I believe the techs get 8 patients each. I don't know how some of you work under those conditions!

Hi, I'm a RN. I have had a short experience working in orthopaedic ward.

In a normal day shift (morning and afternoon until 9pm), we have 5 RN and 4 LPN handling the ward load of 52 patients and some 12-15 extended beds. RNs are diveded into 3 groups, 2:2:1. each nurses is assiged from 13-15 patients per shift. For the night shift, there are only 2 RN and a LPN taking care of the whole ward. The ward occupancy is about 110% 11 months a year. The first night shift really horrified me. That night, it was a full full-house. I was assigned to 17 extended beds because i was new and those patients were 'ok'. Just imagine the vital sign taking, medication and reports to write! Luckily it's only a short 3 months rotation to orthopaedic ward before my new job assignment.

7 patients at night is standard for me.. way hectic... no matter what they say, patients dont sleep

tonight i am posting from work , i have 5-6 patients and 2 aids for 25 patients.