Please tell me if I am looking at this the wrong way, because if I am I need to eat my words. We currantly have 2 aides out on leave for injurys at work. We also have a secretary off FMLA. We were already down 2 aides, as one left the area and another was unhappy and went back to the hospital. Now, one aide works all nights and the other aide has been on dayturn to help with bathes. That leaves all RN staff on evening shift. Many times we don't have a secretary at all and when we do they leave at 8pm. Guess when most of our admissions come? Between 2-8pm. So, we now have no aide to answer call lights, admissions coming in and because the one secretary is out on leave, we have been answering the phone most days as well. This is in addition to doing basically primary care on hospice patients. The women I work with are WONDERFUL. I have yet to hear anyone complain about the situation, we just suck it up and take care of our patients.
The night turn aide comes in an hour earlier then the nurses to help cover the floor while we are in report. Now TONIGHT, I had the night turn aide come in and start on me because I haven't emptied my foleys. I explained to her that I have the expectation that she is going to do that when she goes around to get her vitals done. She replied to me that she is the NIGHT TURN aide and that is afternoon's job, not hers. :angryfire ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME? I run my butt off all night doing primary care on 4-5 dying people. Answer call bells. Do the bulk of admissions. Oh, btw, you see I said secretary, not unit clerk. GUESS who takes off the orders? Answer phones. No social worker on the off shifts, so I also spend A LOT of time with the families. I do my own vitals when I come on. Do post-mortum care on my patients and help out my co-workers with boosts and such. But, because they urinated into a bag between 4-11, it isn't her responsiblity to empty it? When I said, why can't you just do that when your getting your midnight vitals, she came back with, well why don't you do it when you pass your midnight meds? Do I bother going over the six rights of medication administration, is it going to do any good? I feel like if she is punched in at 11, even though my shift isn't over until 12, she should be acting as an aide for MY shift. She pretty much wants to just start getting her midnight work done. She even passed a comment about the garbage cans not being emptied and the linen bags piling up in the soiled utility room cart.
OK, so am I wrong? Do I suck it up and empty the darn bags or should I force the issue? I mean, where do I draw the line and say ENOUGH? I can only do so much and then you have to help pick up some of the slack. Maybe next time the housekeeper should jump down my throat because a patient died on my shift and I didn't have the bed cleaned when she comes in on days:icon_roll
