Am I Stupid Or What?

[lioneliz]

Am I stupid or what?

I keep thinking that the "powers that be" over the agency I work with will someday wake up and take an intrest in their home health agency (a small hospital based agency that serves a rural area). The staff has dwindled down to 1 full time nurse...me, a prn nurse, 1 aide, 1PT, a contract MSW and ST. Usually things rock along ok but this past couple of weeks has been horrible. The prn nurse was busy and couldn't work and then the aide had a death in the family and has been off. I just finished working 19 days straight, and today was a doozy of a day. I keep thinking the "boss man" will hire more help but I am only fooling myself. Why would they hire any one else when they can get me to do it for one low salaried rate? Am I stupid or what?

I enjoy home health nursing. I like the community I live in, and there is a need for home health here. I sometimes feel as if the hospital district is like a dysfunctional family and I'm a co-depedent member of the family. Any suggestions for how to get more help?

[renerian, BSN, RN]

I cannot even see why the hospital would keep it open with such limited staff? Do they run ads and no one reponds or are they not even looking?

I am wondering if the hospital keeps it open on paper and is not devoting much in the budget for it? Something seems fishy.

Do you have competetors in your area?

renerian

[lioneliz]

There aren't any agencies in our town, but there are other agencies with service areas that overlap into ours, one in particular, a rather large one, is definitely in compitition for patients in any area as well as ours. I wonder why they (the hospital district) keeps us open also. I am thinking of changing jobs. I would like to stay in home health. This is the only agency I have done home health with (for 8 years now). What are the big agencies like? What kind of pay scale is out there? Should a person go per diem, contract, hourly salary etc.? What are the options?

[CseMgr1, ASN, RN]

Originally posted by lioneliz

I just finished working 19 days straight, and today was a doozy of a day. I keep thinking the "boss man" will hire more help but I am only fooling myself. Why would they hire any one else when they can get me to do it for one low salaried rate? Am I stupid or what?

You're only stupid if you choose to stay. I've been there, done that in home health, too, honey, and as long as the big boss man knows that his only nurse is going to do the work and he can reap the profits from low staffing, nothing is going to change!